Tag Archive: spiritual growth


Why Irritating People are Great Spiritual Teachers

Filed Under: Relationships, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Why Irritating People are Great Spiritual Teachers

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I understand that what irritates us about others is really about us. The part I have trouble with is figuring out how to actually take that irritation and apply it to myself. It’s like looking in a mirror with everything being backwards. Can you give me a short course on this matter?
– DeDe

Dear DeDe:

When someone does or says something that pushes a personal button for us, we tend to have a personal emotional reaction. By contrast, when someone does something abhorrent that we would never do, we may feel appalled but we won’t be personally indignant or annoyed.

For example, we may be shocked to hear about someone robbing a bank but not have a personal emotional reaction because this behavior is foreign and baffling to us. By contrast, we may feel really irritated when someone allows themselves to act in ways we wish we could act but rarely allow ourselves to.

I find it really annoying when people are lazy. No one would say that I am personally lazy; in fact, I tend to work all the time and rarely allow myself any down time. This doesn’t mean I’m not lazy, however; it means I don’t allow myself to be lazy. Whenever there is a lack of healthy balance, tension is born. I have traced my strong feelings about laziness back to my childhood, and even though I’m aware that I have some false beliefs and imbalances surrounding this subject, I haven’t resolved them yet, so I still tend to feel irritated when other people bring this issue up for me by being lazy.

By contrast, when I see someone working really hard and being rewarded for it, it underscores my own belief that it’s good to work hard. Thus I tend to like and respect hard workers because they’re like me. What I don’t consciously recognize most of the time is that lazy folks are like me too – they’re just like a part of me that I repress and deny because I don’t like it.

Another common example is the need to be right. I always think I’m right, and I find it really annoying to deal with someone who seems to think they are smarter than I am. When I step outside the ego and observe how I do the same thing, it’s pretty amusing. That sense of easy, nonjudgmental awareness is enlightening. When we can stop needing to be perfect and taking ourselves so seriously, we begin to see ourselves clearly. Then we can shift from the ego stance of I’m right and you’re wrong, to something more like Well, whaddya know!

Now let’s examine a subject I believe I have no real hang-ups about: sexuality. In my view – when it hasn’t been perverted by fear, shame, repression and denial – sex is all good. I have no problem with public displays of affection; in fact, it makes me happy to see others in love. I have no problem with homosexuality, bi-sexuality, free love or anything that doesn’t harm another person. I have no issue with anyone talking openly about sex or my own teenagers safely and respectfully exploring their sexuality. Given their intense socialization on this subject, most people have at least some repressed sexual issues, so many people are a bit shocked and disturbed by my relatively free sexuality.

That strong reaction is the thing to look for. As we become more conscious and begin to step outside the ego to truly observe ourselves, we begin to realize that our reactions to life and other people are not about them – they are entirely about us. No one else can make us feel any particular way at all: our responses are determined by who we are, what we believe, and how we interpret our experiences.

The more attached we are to seeing ourselves in a certain light, the stronger our reaction will be when others bring up parts of ourselves we don’t want to face. This doesn’t necessarily mean we act like those people; it usually means we have feelings we have fearfully repressed. Of course, sometimes we do act as they do but we don’t want to recognize it.

Further, the other person doesn’t even have to be a true reflection of ourselves – it’s what we see in them that reflects our own nature. A clear example of this is when one partner suspects the other partner of being unfaithful, when in truth, it is the suspicious partner who has been fooling around or at least thinking about it. This is where it becomes really clear that what we see in others is a reflection of our own true nature. People who assume the best of others tend to be well-intentioned themselves, while people who assume the worst are simply projecting their own shadows outward.

Once we realize we’re having a strong negative reaction to something or someone, we have to use our divine gift of reason to work our way toward some important realizations, such as:

I recognize that when I always need to look smart and right, I often just look ridiculous.

When I make up my mind that I already know the answers, I become incapable of learning anything new, and thus become LESS intelligent.

I’m attached to being right because I’m afraid of losing control of situations and the one-up position in relationships.

Being right may bring temporal satisfaction, but being loving brings lasting happiness.

This reasoning process naturally leads to greater wisdom and softens the ego so that the higher self may emerge more and more. When we become conscious of why we feel the way we do and how we’d like to feel and be instead, we become capable of positive change.

So when you have a negative reaction to someone or something, you might view it as a red flag drawing your attention to a personal issue or lesson. To resolve this, first shift from resistance to love by asking yourself what the other person is really after with their so-called negative behavior. If you can find compassion for them and give them what they want, you will move from hating them (and this part of yourself) to loving them (and this part of yourself), which will facilitate growth and healing. Further, we get what we give in life, so by giving to others what they seem to want, you will begin to attract a higher level of experience yourself.

For example:

If the other person wants to be right, can you let them be right? 

If they want to talk endlessly about themselves, can you let them talk and really listen? 

If they want more than their fair share, can you let them have it? 

If they want to criticize you, can you accept their criticism and apologize for anything you may have done or said to upset them? 

If they are rude, can you be polite in response? 

If they are angry, can you be soothing and validating? 

If they are lazy or misguided, can you allow them to learn from their own mistakes and reap whatever they sow? 

As you align with love, look within yourself. If you are annoyed because someone is lazy, ask yourself, Do I wish I gave myself more permission to be lazy too? Then examine your life for a lack of balance. If others are selfish, ask yourself if you wish you gave yourself permission to give more to yourself without feeling guilty about it. If they are angry, ask yourself if you are angry deep down and trying to deny or repress that anger.

Meditation, journaling, counseling and hypnotherapy are great tools for working through any issues that come up. When you get to the point where no one is wrong – where everyone is just doing their best to learn and grow – then you’ll know that you’re no longer caught up in ego-born denial or repression, and are on your way to greater embodiment of your own higher nature.

– Soul Arcanum

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Disillusionment with Spiritual Teachers

Filed Under: Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Disillusionment with Spiritual Teachers

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Dear Soul Arcanum:

Last night a guest on a radio program was talking about his incredible experiences while meditating. He was saying that one time while deep in meditation, he met Jesus, and he said that trying to look Jesus in the eye was nearly impossible because he was so intensely bright. Jesus asked him if he wanted to meet an angel and he said yes, and he started flying through our galaxy towards the center. He said that this was so blissful and ecstatic that it became too overwhelming and he wanted to stop it. He said there were nine spheres or levels of bliss, and each one was more intense than the previous. He got all the way to the boundary of the last one but felt that if he crossed into it, he couldn’t come back, so he stopped because he wanted to tell the world that this is real.

I’ve heard stories like this from people in the past, but over the past year, I’ve experienced huge disillusionment because I started following this man that I thought was a true master but I came to find out he is narrow-minded about a lot of things and hasn’t been open with the truth. I also found out Yogananda had some skeletons in his closet, so I’m a lot more cautious about spiritual teachers now. I just don’t know what or who to believe in anymore. Can you verify or debunk through your own experiences what this man on the radio was talking about last night? Part of me is inspired to start meditating again, but part of me is wary about getting suckered in.
– Ned

Dear Ned

Regarding the experiences this man described, I see no reason to doubt he was telling the truth. I’ve never had an experience like this myself, but many aspects of it are in harmony with mystical experiences recorded throughout the ages. While you could point to that fact alone to suggest that he was making it all up, one has to wonder why he’d bother.

Here are some of the aspects that mirror classic mystical experiences:

First, seeing a beautiful light is probably the most common element in reports of near death experiences. Some believe this light to be Jesus, while others interpret it to be some other divine being. Almost all say that they can’t look directly at it, yet it doesn’t hurt their eyes. Being bathed in this light is universally reported to be blissful beyond words.

Many people who have out of body and near death experiences report flying through space and exploring the nature of reality in ways similar to what this man described. The idea that there are nine spheres or dimensions is also common. In ancient Rome, it was believed that our physical world is one of nine spheres, and this was echoed in Christian, Muslim, Jewish and other esoteric teachings.

While you could argue that we’ve all been influenced both consciously and unconsciously by these traditions, these ideas must originate somewhere, so it would be just as foolish to reject them outright as it would be to accept them blindly. In the case of experiences that are reported time and time again from people throughout different cultures and belief systems, I’m inclined to assume there is at least a seed of truth in them.

My own journey has also taught me that far more is possible than most people realize. Certainly, if what you desire is mind-blowing mystical experiences, then you’re wise to go for it and expect to be guided to fulfillment.

Regarding your disillusionment with spiritual gurus, I do understand how you feel. There are two aspects of this issue we might examine closely: the sort of person who seeks to become a famous spiritual teacher and your reason for wanting to find a teacher you can wholly believe in.

I tend to view high profile spiritual teachers very much like I view politicians: the best people for the job are too wise to want it. It’s the ego that craves fame and fortune, not the higher self, so anyone who sets themselves up as somehow special is automatically suspect in my book.

If spiritual teachers set themselves apart or above others, keep moving. If they were coming from their higher selves, they would view you to be just as divine as they are, and would aim to empower you by helping you see that. This is not to say that you can’t trust anyone famous, just that we shouldn’t be surprised when famous spiritual teachers demonstrate ego-based behavior. Even many of those spiritual teachers who have fame thrust upon them eventually succumb to the seductive trappings of celebrity.

I also understand your desire to find someone you can truly believe in. Everyone longs for something special and magical, and when we don’t know where to look for it, we’re naturally eager to follow someone who says they can show us the way. However, when we place a mere mortal on a spiritual pedestal, we set ourselves up for disappointment.

The search for a great spiritual teacher is often rooted in a desire to find the perfect parent we never had as children. We want to believe that someone else – a spiritual teacher or a heavenly father – is all-loving and all-powerful, and if we just obey and worship them, they’ll take perfect care of us. This arises from fear and hence a desire to feel more secure, and a lack of faith in ourselves and our own divine nature.

It’s never wise to give our power away to another mere mortal or to worship another person in the place of God – whatever God may mean to us. God whispers to us within our own hearts and souls, so as we evolve spiritually, we stop looking for the Divine outside ourselves and start listening within. When we step into our own divine power, we lose the need for someone else to save us or show us the way.

So as I see it, becoming disillusioned with spiritual teachers you’ve had on a pedestal is a sign of spiritual maturity. Instead of viewing them as demigods, we might consider them fellow spiritual travelers who have already journeyed through territory we’d like to explore ourselves. Since all they can do is tell us about what they encountered and perhaps offer us advice or a map of the territory they’re familiar with, we’d be foolish to project superhuman qualities on them. We can take the best of what they have to offer us, but we should be prepared to leave the rest.

You’re not alone, my friend. All spiritual seekers go through the same pattern of experience: they find a teacher or path that inspires them and get really absorbed in it for a while. Then after they’ve soaked up all they need, they start to feel restless and are no longer intrigued or impressed. This is positive because it causes them to move on and explore new ideas. Staying with the same teacher forever would be like studying nothing but algebra; you might get really good at math, but you’d miss out on a wonderful variety of other subjects.

So your disillusionment is a sign that you’re ready to move on, not only from this particular teacher, but from your need to find someone who has all the answers figured out for you. You don’t need to find a teacher you can wholly believe in – you just need to trust your own inner being to guide you. Your inner being is trying to do that now by inspiring you to pursue your own amazing mystical experiences.

Finally, I sincerely believe that whatever you manifest is perfect for you at that time. In this situation, I see your disillusionment with others as having a wonderful higher purpose: it’s guiding you to develop greater faith in yourself.

– Soul Arcanum

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Battling Dark or Hateful Impulses

Filed Under: Energy/Vibration, Psychic Protection, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Battling Dark or Hateful Impulses

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Dear Soul Arcanum:

Do you ever get sudden impulses to do bad things? Sometimes, particularly when I’m on the internet, I get a sudden impulse to do or say something. I have an online journal wherein I try to understand myself and my deepest motives better. I know that the people who read my journal can be affected by it, as I notice ripple effects. For example, I make a hateful post about something, and then the next day several other people are complaining and being really negative.

Because of this ripple effect, I’ve gotten much more careful about what I say and why I say it, but sometimes I still get impulses to say harsh or extreme things and I go with it, not knowing why. It’s very important to me to do the right thing, so often after I act on those impulses, I start to feel really uncomfortable and wonder why I did that. Do you have insights into this?
– N.

N.:

You’re wrestling in a battle between your lower and higher natures, which I’ll call the ego and the higher self here. This is something everyone on the planet is struggling with. As we become more spiritually aware, we become more conscious of this struggle, and as you described, it becomes more important to us to do the right thing.

Sometimes we put too much pressure on ourselves to be perfect, which can lead to a backlash. It’s like when I go into a store full of breakable objects, and I get so tense about accidentally breaking something that sometimes I have the impulse to just thrash around wildly. (I never do that of course, but this is a good example of the tension we create when we put a lot of pressure on ourselves.)

The ego will also start to freak out as we evolve spiritually and the higher self gains ground, and when the ego is really taking a licking, it may begin to thrash around like a drowning man desperate to save himself.

Picture your being as a very important group, and for years and years, Ego has been its leader. Ego has determined the general direction for the group and had the ultimate say in things. All along, of course, Higher Self has sat quietly in the background, gently interjecting now and then as the voice of your conscience, slipping in wise, positive suggestions to try to keep everyone on track.

There have been countless debates between Ego and Higher Self, wherein Ego would shout about strategy and protecting the group’s interests, while Higher Self would calmly respond with suggestions to relax, trust, forgive, reach out, be kind, etc. At some point, the group began to listen more and more to Higher Self, and many members nominated him to be the new group leader.

Now when Ego raises his hand, he’s usually ignored, so he’s begun to leap up in outbursts of frustration, trying to get some attention and hold on to his former power. Despite how crazy he’s acting, now and then he manages to stir up a lot of fear in the group, and gets them to go along with one of his desperate plans. After everyone calms down, they realize they’ve been misled again, and they wonder why they keep listening to this guy.

This is mainly what you’re dealing with here: you’ve grown a lot recently, and are in the process of consciously aligning with your higher self. Your ego is fighting for its life, for when we ultimately realize the truth that we are all one and we reunite with Source, the ego ceases to exist.

This is all part of the universal battle between good and evil, which is quite real despite what many lovely New Age folks will tell you. If there was nothing but love and light, we’d all just be floating around in a state of perpetual bliss. Everything has a shadow side or opposite, and life itself springs from the tension born of this contrast.

So what you’re struggling with is wonderful fertilizer for spiritual growth. Without the temptation to be bad, how could we strive to be good? Without the temptation to be hateful, how could we learn to be loving? Everyone on the planet is wrestling with the same issues and temptations. The question of the hour is which will YOU choose?

Beyond this personal level, we’re all virtual pioneers trying to sort out all sorts of unprecedented challenges and opportunities. The world is racing along faster than ever before in history. We can connect with strangers in every corner of the globe, and information can travel around the planet at the click of a button now.

Because of this pace, we can learn and experience more in this lifetime than we could in many lifetimes in other historic periods. We can do more good but we can also do more damage. For example, with the flip of one switch, some crazy guy could cause global nuclear disaster. At the same time, anyone with a computer and a bold vision can unite the world in love and compassion. Everything has shifted upward toward the etheric or virtual realm where we have more power to affect other people through metaphysical means than ever before, and with that power comes great responsibility.

Picture that your personal power is like a fire: if you control it and use it for positive purposes, such as warming a house or cooking nourishing food, your fire can do a lot of good. If you don’t control it, however, it can cause a lot of damage.

Further, let’s say that dark forces are like water. They like things cold, dark and wet, not bright, warm and toasty, so their natural goal is to put your divine fire out. As your fire grows bigger and brighter, it becomes more of a target for dark forces, so you have to tend it more carefully.

When we consciously cultivate a high vibration and we develop the habit of using self-discipline to rise above the ego’s temptations, it becomes normal for us to stay centered in the higher self. We then notice immediately if our light begins to dim, and when we stoke it up bright and hot again, it naturally drives dark shadows away. What many earnest seekers fail to realize, however, is that you can’t scold or punish yourself into a high vibration – you have to love your way there.

So when we combine the power of modern technology with the personal power gained through spiritual growth, we’re dealing with a lot of power and the need for a lot of responsibility. Our thoughts, feelings and words can affect people around the world in an instant, and as you noted, this can ripple out and affect the whole planet.

I encourage you to recognize how powerful you are and to make a conscious choice about how you want to use that power. You might scrap the online journal you’ve had going or transform it into a new blog with a higher intention. Instead posting whatever thoughts or feelings come up for the world to see, you could consciously cultivate something beautiful and bright with divine love.

– Soul Arcanum

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Spiritual Effects of Marijuana

Filed Under: Emotional Well-being, Energy/Vibration, Psychic Ability, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Spiritual Effects of Marijuana

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Dear Soul Arcanum:

People say that marijuana can lead to enlightening experiences, but I don’t think that’s the case. From my experience, it just seems like it messes up the senses and causes a lot of confusion. When I smoked it, my mind was separated from the physical world and I felt oblivious to what was happening around me. Am I validated in feeling this way? What are the spiritual effects of smoking marijuana?
– Ned

Dear Ned:

Please note that this article in no way encourages illegal activity of any kind; it’s purely a philosophical discussion.

The spiritual effects of marijuana use depend entirely on who you are, where you are in your journey, and your intention in using it. Drugs aside, people should be psychologically stable and healthy before exploring altered states of consciousness.

Most of our beliefs about illicit drugs stem from social conditioning and our observations of people who abuse them in order to avoid reality. When people who aren’t stable and competent in everyday life take recreational drugs, it’s like watching someone who just learned to drive climb into the cockpit of an airplane. By contrast, people who are ready for it and have a clear sense of where they want to go can fly to new dimensions of spiritual experience by employing various sacred tools and practices.

Many sincere seekers who embrace marijuana as a sacrament find it spiritually beneficial. Further, many times when people use marijuana for the first time, it opens them up to a whole new realm of possibilities because getting high focuses their attention inward, toward the realm of spirit. Pot alters our state of consciousness and increases alpha brain waves much like meditation and other trance work. In terms of its effects on the aura, it can create a lovely green color and open the heart chakra. So you’re right in saying that it loosens your awareness of the physical world, but isn’t that one aim of spiritual practice?

Perhaps the most dramatic spiritual effect of marijuana use can be seen in people who are strongly rooted in physical, rational, left-brain thinking. From birth we are programmed with what and how to think, which can become a mental straight jacket that prevents us from moving beyond ordinary levels of wisdom, consciousness and spiritual experience.

Through altered states of consciousness, we can escape from that mental conditioning and expand the scope of our inner horizons. When we get high, we often experience higher levels of love, peace and awareness. Before we experience something, we don’t even know that it’s possible, but after we’ve done it at least once, it’s easier to find our way back to it without aid of outside influences.

So just trying marijuana can awaken people who are uptight with social conditioning to new spiritual possibilities. Further, when their existing beliefs are shattered, they hopefully learn to question everything else they’ve assumed to be true, possible, right, good, etc. This blesses them with an open mind, which fosters further personal and spiritual growth.

Marijuana can also turn on parts of the brain that have remained dormant and free our consciousness to wander into new psychic territory. According to at least one very involved study, using marijuana can profoundly increase a person’s chances of having an out of body experience. Marijuana users are also far more likely to report experiences of ESP, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance and other psychic phenomena. In lab experiments, regular marijuana users have also scored significantly higher on psychic tests than non-users.

Similar studies have found a negative correlation between ESP scoring and alcohol use, and scientists have noted that marijuana affects the brain differently from drugs like alcohol, nicotine and cocaine. For example, marijuana seems to generate the growth of new brain cells and stimulate brain cells in ways that combat depression and other mood disorders, where the other drugs have an opposite effect.

Marijuana users also frequently report spiritual experiences, such as feeling connected to All That Is; contact with Divine beings like spirits, angels and guides; a deep sense of peace and contentment; a shift in their values away from materialism toward more spiritual interests and concerns, etc. Just meeting spiritual beings or having an out of body experience can spiritually transform people by opening them up to all sorts of new possibilities, allowing them to shed limiting fears, and launching them on a quest for new wisdom and experience.

Further, the term “to get high” accurately reflects marijuana’s spiritual effects. When most people smoke marijuana, they get fully present in the moment, drop all emotional resistance and sink into a wonderful state of appreciation. As a result, their vibration skyrockets. When our vibration is soaring, we’re more open to life and other people, which facilitates greater psychic and spiritual awareness. (Those who feel paranoid on marijuana should definitely avoid it, and might view this as a sign that they have a lot of repressed fears to be healed and released.)

Since marijuana doesn’t lower our vibration and it isn’t addictive, we don’t have to worry about lower astral entities as we do with other substances like alcohol. In fact, smudging with marijuana can dispel dark energies and cleanse the psychic atmosphere like sage does, for its energetic tone resonates with purification, liberation, peace and love.

All of this aside, please understand that I am just explaining why marijuana may have spiritually beneficial effects on some people. I am not in any way trying to convince you to change your mind about what is best for you personally, nor am I advocating the use of mind altering drugs for spiritual growth. Scientists have learned that the body produces its own psychedelic chemicals, so when we ingest a mind altering drug, we’re not introducing anything truly foreign into our bodies. This means we don’t NEED things like marijuana in order to attain the states of consciousness they induce.

I also believe that there is a point early on in every conscious spiritual journey when the use of mind altering substances becomes more limiting than beneficial. We might equate this with becoming an astronaut: when you can soar into the cosmos in a rocket, climbing into the cockpit of that airplane I mentioned earlier will prevent you from going as far and as high as you could without it.

Marijuana has been used as a spiritual tool for ages, and like any other tool, it can be used for destructive or constructive purposes. If spiritual seekers take a wise, mature approach, using marijuana may expand their consciousness and help them tap new psychic ability.

– Soul Arcanum

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When Family Members Clash over Spiritual Beliefs

Filed Under: Relationships, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on When Family Members Clash over Spiritual Beliefs

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Dear Soul Arcanum:

My younger sister and I are both Pisces; we were born on the same day four years apart. However, our spiritual paths are completely different, and we’ve shared some pretty heavy-duty emails back and forth recently. She’s a very strict Catholic who goes by the book, and she thinks that because I accept the theory of reincarnation, practice yoga and meditation, believe that we are all part of God and there is life on other planets, etc., I am doomed to go to hell. She also believes the devil influenced my decision to leave the Church over thirty years ago. I’m hoping to move much further away from her soon because I really don’t feel comfortable around her anymore. In my last email to her, I suggested we just drop the subject entirely. I would love to be able to discuss spiritual issues with her, but alas, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Do you think she’ll ever question her present spiritual beliefs? I fear our recent tiff over religion may have done some serious damage to our friendship. Thanks for your thoughts on this! – Kay

Dear Kay:

I feel your pain, my friend. My father was a wonderful, devoted parent and a sharp, educated, formidable debate opponent. He also thought everything psychic or paranormal was totally crazy. While he didn’t think these subjects were the work of the devil, he couldn’t even hear someone mention something along these lines without rolling his eyes and changing the subject.

I lived to please my father, so I learned early on to avoid bringing up anything related to spirituality. Given who I am and what I do for a living, you might wonder how we could have had a good relationship if we avoided discussing everything I am about, but we did – we enjoyed an extraordinarily close, harmonious bond. I believe this is because we both avoided talking about spiritual matters. Toward the end of his life, he actually came around a bit, and this meant so much more to me than if he had been behind me all along, for I knew that his respect was hard won.

Some topics are almost guaranteed to spark conflict. I avoid discussing politics and religion with family, since unlike friends, family members are part of our lives whether we like it or not. In fact, I don’t bring up my spiritual beliefs to anyone but known kindred spirits. Take it from me, you CAN have a great relationship with someone even if you have very different spiritual beliefs and never discuss that area of your lives.

Regarding the role of astrology here, we must remember that just because two people have the same sun sign or birthday, that doesn’t mean they’ll be just alike. The whole chart must be taken into account along with other variables such as present and past life experiences, free will, level of spiritual development, etc.

Pisces are generally very spiritual, open-minded, sensitive and compassionate. You two are similar in that you both have some very strong spiritual beliefs. One of Pisces’ greatest desires is to feel understood, and I sense that both you and your sister want to feel understood and accepted by the other.

You’re also dealing with a key turning point in every spiritual journey when people shift from looking outside themselves for support and direction to looking first and foremost within. We all eventually realize that we are co-creators with God, but when this idea is new to us, it can really flip us out.

Many people who cling to traditional religions are really attached to the idea that there are people and supernatural beings who are wiser and more powerful than they are who are in charge of making sure everything is okay. These people need to believe that if they follow a few basic rules, everything will work out and they’ll go to heaven one day. They don’t trust their own judgment or ability to create their own reality yet. Our goal is to have compassion for these folks and to assume that they are where they need to be and will open up to new possibilities when they are ready.

I feel you two may also be simply acting out the dramatic clash between old religious traditions v. new spiritual thinking that is happening on a global level. As Pisces you’re both very sensitive, so you may be more vulnerable to this sort acting out than most people. To break free, you just need to get conscious of what is happening and choose what is important to you personally. It sounds like this is what you’re in the process of doing by trying to let go of this debate.

This is a time of unprecedented accelerated planetary change. In the past 100 years or so, humankind has developed the ability to quickly travel to any spot around the globe and to instantly connect with people from other cultures via the internet, television, etc. This has exposed many people to new beliefs and spiritual practices. A century ago, most people identified with their own country and lived their whole lives in one religious community, while now we are all rocketing toward global unity and cosmic consciousness.

Because this is happening so quickly, many people who are uncomfortable with these changes are really struggling. They’re stressed, anxious and afraid, and as a result, they cling to tradition. Their fear has fueled a resurgence of religious fundamentalism. Instead of debating or criticizing these people, we’re wise to recognize their fear and try to find compassion for them.

As for your own part in this conflict, whenever you have an emotional reaction to anything that someone says to or about you, you can be sure they have pushed one of your ego’s buttons. By contrast, when you’re centered in your higher self, you won’t take anything anyone says personally, and won’t feel threatened by any particular idea.

Deep down, everyone who is intelligent has some doubts about their spiritual beliefs, for these are not matters that anyone can be sure about. Since you grew up in the Catholic Church, you may have some old programs running in the background that make you feel a bit anxious about your new spirituality. This is entirely natural. Even I sometimes look at everything I believe based on my own experiences and wonder if I’m out of my mind! This sort of doubt is healthy. My point is if you feel defensive in any way, it’s an opportunity for you to work through whatever issues may be lurking in the background of your psyche.

Since we can’t convince anyone of anything until they’re ready, there is no point in arguing about others’ personal beliefs. It sounds to me like you and your sister have lost sight of your priorities in this relationship. If what you want is a good debate, then challenging each others’ spiritual beliefs is almost guaranteed to reward you. If instead you want relationship harmony, you’d be wise to save such discussions for your spiritual family.

To turn this relationship around, you might start by giving your sister all you hope to receive: Embrace who she really is, communicate your respect for her views, and tell her that you don’t want your differences to come between you. If you put love first, love will follow.

– Soul Arcanum

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Anger, Betrayal and Spirituality

Filed Under: Law of Attraction, Manifesting, Relationships, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Anger, Betrayal and Spirituality

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I thought I had attained a certain degree of spiritual awareness, but lately I find myself feeling very unevolved. Instead of feeling kind, patient and compassionate, I feel like everything upsets me these days. In particular, people are so disappointing! Every time I turn around I feel like someone I love and trust is betraying me or disappointing me by acting selfish or dishonest, and it makes me really angry because I would never behave like that. How in the world do I keep manifesting this? One upset after another has left me really dispirited. I used to be spiritual and loving all the time – do you think I’m regressing?
– A.

Dear A.: You are definitely not alone in feeling this way. One of the hardest things for me to make peace with is being disappointed by people I love and want to believe in. When someone I really care about does something selfish or hurtful, or keeps lying even though I’m begging them to be honest with me, I can go into a major tailspin myself.

Here’s why so-called spiritual folks struggle with this issue so much: The more we try to embody our spiritual natures, the less we act from our egos. This means at some point, we do become quite different from most people. Where most live from their egos with occasional flashes of divine wisdom and compassion, someone who has long been devoted to spiritual growth tends be centered in their higher self with occasional fits of ego.

If we strive to be extraordinary people but assume the rest of the world will be just like us, we will naturally get discouraged. Life is a journey of spiritual growth, and none of us are enlightened yet. If we expect people to act like wise, compassionate sages, we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment.

It helps me to remember that even the most spiritual beings to ever walk the planet had to deal with the same sort of disappointment. The story of Jesus offers us a great example, for He was betrayed by one of his closest friends (Judas), who sold Him out for cash! Then at the hour of His greatest need, the other apostles all abandoned Him. I figure if Jesus can be betrayed like this, none of us are immune.

It’s also quite normal for life to begin throwing us curve balls if we’ve been batting a thousand for a while. This means if we’ve got a nice, smooth vibe going, inevitably something will happen that stretches our capacity for patience and tolerance. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t learn and grow anymore.

It’s like mastering algebra and then moving on to geometry and feeling lost again. If we stayed in algebra forever, life would seem pretty easy, but it would also get boring and we’d never learn anything new. Whether we like it or not, we can’t keep repeating the same lessons over and over again – we have to move on.

One of the first things you need to realize is that it is not “unspiritual” to get angry. I think being spiritual is simply the habit of self-examination combined with the sincere desire to be a good person. The harder you are on yourself about feeling angry, the more likely you will be to deny or repress your feelings, which is the source of all sorts of problems. What you’re working on at this point in your spiritual journey is making peace with your shadow nature.

If you try to never get angry in the first place, you’ll run up against some powerful biology. Whenever we feel threatened emotionally, our bodies respond as they do when we feel threatened physically. We are WIRED to get angry when something threatens our happiness, and it can take days for the adrenaline that was released when we got angry to go back to normal levels. I find this interesting because it’s hard to stay angry for more than a few days – eventually, we let it go.

Most people are denying, avoiding or repressing all sorts of negative emotions. This is why millions of people are taking anti-depressants, and why so many are addicted to things like drugs, alcohol, food, etc. They’re all trying to avoid emotional pain.

When we work to become more conscious of what’s happening within us, it can seem like we’re suddenly flooded with intense negative feelings. (After all, we generally don’t repress positive emotions). It’s therefore common for negative emotions to bubble over when we’re moving into a new level of conscious awareness or a new level of personal healing, and it may indeed seem like we’re regressing at that point.

One of the greatest pay-offs of spiritual growth is the freedom to choose how we will respond to our experience. When we allow others to upset or anger us, we give our power away. When we center ourselves i n our own divine power within, we can choose how we feel regardless of what is happening in our outer experience. So as spiritual seekers, our goal is not to be rid of anger but to consciously choose what we do with that energy. We must learn how to transmute it into something higher like positive change, new wisdom and understanding, or a greater capacity for forgiveness and unconditional love.

While it’s healthy to acknowledge and process our feelings, I’m not a big fan of primal scream therapy or similar ideas, because when we practice anger, we just get better at it. When we send rage out to the Universe, we get rage back. While it’s healthier to let our anger out than to stuff it down, it’s even better to work with that energy consciously and let it fuel positive change. Properly channeled, anger can be transmuted into powerful motivation and creativity.

What works best for me is to simply cultivate what I want instead of anger. So when I’m feeling angry, I might read a spiritual book, take a walk in nature or do some yoga. Other great tools for transmuting anger into new power and healing include vigorous exercise, art therapy, hypnotherapy, meditation, energy healing, spiritual counseling, and the use of divination tools like runes and tarot to sort out the deeper spiritual truths in upsetting situations.

In terms of the law of attraction, the only way to break free of a cycle of upset and disappointment is to choose to stop getting upset over things that would normally upset you. If you truly believe yourself to be a good person who deserves to be treated better than you’re being treated, you have to begin to treat yourself better first. By allowing people who don’t share your values to disrupt your happiness, you aren’t treating yourself well, and when you don’t treat yourself very well, your vibration drops and other people begin to treat you badly too.

To manifest more uplifting relationships, you have to stop allowing anyone to bring you down. You have to be your own best friend – not the friend who is always late, forgets your birthday, and never really listens to you – the best friend you would LIKE to have.

As you do this, you will begin to meet new people. This is no accident. When you become happier, you attract people of a higher vibration. If you begin to love yourself well by choosing to be happy, one of two things will happen: everyone who doesn’t or can’t love you similarly will fade out of your experience, or you’ll bring out something better in the folks who remain.

– Soul Arcanum

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What Will Matter Most in the Afterlife?

Filed Under: Afterlife by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on What Will Matter Most in the Afterlife?

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I would love to hear your views on what will be considered most important in the afterlife. Thank you!
– Dale

Dear Dale:

Thanks for this fantastic question!

There is a tremendous amount of writing on this subject, and all the sources I personally trust and respect are in accord. These sources include the accounts of near death experiencers, astral projectors like Robert Monroe who explore the realms of the afterlife while living, and the wisdom of spiritual masters such as Jesus Christ, Edgar Cayce, Emanuel Swedenborg, Helen Blavatsky and many more.

These sources all agree that the most important thing in the Universe is love. As was written in Corinthians 1:13, “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” The more divine love we embody while living, the greater our experience will be both here AND beyond.

There are places on this Earth that are rife with violence, ugliness, hatred, poverty and suffering, and the same is true in the afterlife. There are also places on Earth that are rich with peace, beauty, love, abundance and joy, and this is also true in the afterlife.

The inner state of being we have attained at the end of our lives is what we take with us when we die and what determines the quality of our afterlife experience. The truth that like attracts like is direct and obvious in the astral because when we cross over, we can no longer hide our true thoughts and feelings. If we are rich with inner beauty, then we will enter a beautiful realm inhabited by lovely spirits.

By contrast, those souls who are “heaviest” or lowest in vibration may become earthbound spirits. They may not even realize they have died as they hover close to this dimension in a state of endless yearning or confusion. (This is probably where our ideas about hell come from.) If we pass on with strong physical addictions to things like drugs, alcohol, food, sex and so on, we may continue to pursue gratification vicariously through the living. If we cross over with a great deal of fear or confusion, we may also end up lost in the lower astral. There is much help ever available to such spirits, and eventually, they do wake up, turn toward the light and move on.

Many souls skip over the lower astral and enter what some call “the void” when they cross over. This void is actually within us, and throughout our lives we are filling it with all the love, anger, joy, sorrow, faith, fear, wisdom, knowledge (etc.) we experience. (We are forming our own afterlife experience right now!) When we depart this life for the afterlife, many of us go into this void where we begin to purify ourselves of our lowest, heaviest energies first.

During this time, if we have a habit of being self-centered, cynical or unforgiving, we will find ourselves surrounded by other souls who are similar. As we experience our own true self reflected back to us, we will gain the desire and awareness we need to change, and naturally gravitate toward souls that reflect our new and “improved” nature. This is why the greatest spiritual teachers throughout history have advised us above all to “know thyself.”

If we are basically good at heart, we can skip right past the dark corners of the astral and go directly toward vibrationally higher worlds via something that appears to be a tunnel of light. This is when our spiritual knowledge and beliefs become paramount, for our expectations about death, heaven, hell, etc., largely determine where we will end up in the heavens. (There are religious communities in the afterlife just like there are religious communities here on Earth.)

These are illusionary realms where we only see and hear what we believe to be true. Just as ignorance and close-mindedness limit our potential while living, they limit our freedom and power in the afterlife. To set ourselves free of these limitations, we must question everything and search for deeper truths. This is why a key component of spiritual growth is the pursuit of spiritual knowledge and wisdom.

Think about it: people who accept religious dogma without question end up following a bunch of rules that may or may not have any true spiritual value. They may spend entire lifetimes trying to be spiritually “good” and never realize that they’re way off track. For example, the September 11 terrorists sincerely believed that they were attacking “evil” and would be rewarded in heaven. To transcend religious blindness, we must make a habit of questioning everything and keep our minds and hearts open to the divine knowing that can only be found within and through direct personal experience.

In addition to love and wisdom, there is a quality I believe is very important at a spiritual level that is often overlooked, and that is the quality of inner strength or persistence. We tend to view persistence as essential to worldly success, and fail to see how it is also essential to what we might call spiritual success. Perhaps this is because Christianity has made us feel like passive recipients of divine grace instead of the agents of our own healing, “saving” and evolution.

Depression, for example, has come to be viewed as a medical illness, and while it does have physical aspects, it is at its roots a spiritual illness. I used to suffer from depression and I know how “disabling” this state of mind can be. While I believe that modern lifestyles may breed depression, I have learned that it is fueled by self-absorption, which is antagonistic to selfless love.

More and more people are suffering from depression because on the whole, humanity has become less community-focused and more self-absorbed. When we are grateful and loving, we naturally extend our light out into the world and try to uplift others. When we’re depressed, we curl up inside ourselves and become indifferent to others’ needs. It is wise and powerful to be profoundly grateful for life itself, and depression is at the opposite end of the spectrum from gratitude. Feeling sorry for ourselves or viewing ourselves as weak victims of bad luck, biochemistry, or other outer circumstances may thus be as bad for us spiritually as lashing out in anger toward others.

Each of us could come up with reasons why we could be depressed, but people who are wise choose to look on the bright side. When we get down and discouraged we must discipline our minds to think in ways that leave us grateful. When we are frustrated, we must squeeze out a bit more patience. When we are tired and feel like giving up, we must find the strength to keep on trying. When we think we have reached the limits of our capacity to love, we must dig deeper into our hearts for the strength and courage to go on loving. There is no one watching over our shoulders, mind you; only we know if we are doing our bests, and only we will experience the repercussions of our choices. So long as we are honestly doing our bests, we will be happy with ourselves in the end.

We can make tremendous spiritual progress here on Earth, for all we may think we have learned is truly put to the test here. It is wise to simply live in awareness that when we feel dull, lazy, depressed, angry, vengeful or sorry for ourselves, we are creating more darkness for ourselves in the future. When we radiate love, joy, kindness, gratitude and peace, we are creating more light for ourselves in the future. By stretching our hearts to love more, our minds to know and understand more, and our spirits to radiate more peace and light, we raise our own vibration and improve our lives both here and Beyond.

– Soul Arcanum

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Does Romance Interfere with Spirit?

Filed Under: Psychic Ability, Relationships, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Does Romance Interfere with Spirit?

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I have been working on psychic and energy healing skills for a few years now, and it has been an amazing journey. Some time ago, I met and fell in love with someone. While I feel strongly drawn to him and am very happy in this relationship, he seems to interfere with my conscious connection to Spirit! We broke up for about three weeks once, and during that time, I felt Spirit move back into my life. When we got back together again, however, I lost that sense of connection. I’m getting worried that this relationship may somehow be bad for my spiritual growth. Do you think that this romance could be bad for me spiritually?
– Michelle

Dear Michelle:

Please rest assured that no one feels deeply connected spiritually all the time. After we awaken, we’re not awake 24/7: we all frequently take what we might call spiritual naps. These are usually short little catnaps throughout the day, but sometimes we take longer naps that may last for weeks, months or even years. These “naps” are periods when we’re less focused on spiritual growth and more focused on worldly matters like our careers, families, love affairs, and just having fun. It is entirely normal to go through periods when you feel more and less consciously connected to Spirit.

I also think it’s important to realize that when a relationship affects us in a negative way, the other person is not doing something to us; how we relate to them is the problem. Ultimately, our experience of a relationship is all about us, as it arises from our interpretation of events. We should never blame anyone or anything outside of us for the quality of our relationship with Spirit, for there is nothing more personal in the Universe.

I also don’t see any demarcation between “spiritual” matters and anything else in life – everything (and every relationship) is ultimately spiritual. Our task is to find the deeper meaning in whatever we manifest in life, and relationships of all kinds can be wonderful catalysts for personal spiritual growth.

That said, I do believe that romance can indeed derail us from a conscious spiritual path. Where a conscious spiritual path is all about looking deeply into the nature of our experiences and cutting through illusions, romance is all about reveling in illusion. To keep romance going, we have to allow ourselves to get caught up in fantasy and avoid looking beneath the surface. So a conscious spiritual path and a great romance are fundamentally at odds with each other.

Please note that I’m not saying that “true love” is illusionary. True love is what one feels for one’s child, and hopefully, what one grows to feel for one’s partner. True love is constant and comforting; it’s an enduring, solid foundation that supports our well-being and personal growth. Real love is expansive and enriching; it doesn’t detract from anything good in our lives, but rather adds to it.

By contrast, romance is like standing in the middle of a teeter totter. It’s fun, exhilarating and challenging, and it often leads to someone getting hurt. Instead of adding to our lives on every level, it distracts us from everything else that is important to us. How can we do anything with focus and power when we’re constantly struggling just to maintain our balance?

Here’s what basically happens when “spiritual” people like you and me fall in love and fall off a conscious spiritual path. (Please note again that we are never truly off our path at all, for we’re doing just what we need to be doing in order to learn what we most need to learn.):

As we’re falling in love, we spend a lot of psychic energy fantasizing. We wonder about our lover and how they feel about us all the time. We daydream about the future endlessly. We begin to create a fantasy world in our heads of a life where all our dreams have come true. Our lover becomes our hero or heroine, our god or goddess. As we feel cherished and adored, we also become extraordinarily wonderful in our own eyes. We build a beautiful dream world in our minds, and that’s where we live most of the time.

At the same time, our outer routines usually change markedly. We all know the stereotype of the person who is so madly in love that he can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t focus on his work, never sees his friends anymore, etc. Well, you can bet he isn’t spending a lot of time communing with the Divine via meditation or other spiritual practices either.

We may change a lot of little habits as well. We may rush through meditation in order to get ready for a date, or skip church in order to sleep in with our sweetheart on Sunday morning. We may acquire a whole new group of friends – our partner’s pals. In order to be “nice,” we may go see a violent action adventure flick with him instead of the thought-provoking independent film we’d normally choose.

Sometimes we even put aside our most sacred spiritual pursuits in order to “protect” an important relationship. Lovers can feel threatened by a strong spiritual path, perhaps because they sense that this is truly eternal and far more powerful than anything they have to offer. If we become afraid for the relationship, we may put our spiritual interests aside in order to reassure our lover that he is number one. This is not a long-term solution, of course, because one who has awakened cannot nap forever.

These things are natural, but they tend to derail spiritual journeys, for the energy and attention that we flow into the relationship is energy and attention we’re not consciously channeling into spiritual growth.

On top of all of this, we have to actually stifle our conscious awareness in order to maintain the illusion of blissful perfection. Some part of us is aware of both our lover’s flaws and the emotional foolishness of putting anyone or anything of this world on such a high pedestal, but when we’re in love, we do NOT want to hear about it! So we ignore those intuitions, insights, and inner knowings. We want to believe that this love is magical and will lead us to live happily ever after. We are in denial about the full nature of this relationship, the other person, and even ourselves, and we want to STAY THERE.

By pushing away all but what we want to see and hear about our love, we effectively turn off our own higher awareness. When we tell it to shut up and go away, our conscious connection to divine guidance goes underground.

What’s more, when we believe we have this rare, precious love, we naturally feel very attached to it, and this generates big fear about the possibility of losing it, along with all sorts of issues from the past (and past lives) related to self-esteem, abandonment, vulnerability, intimacy, freedom, security, etc. This launches us into lots of emotional drama, which wreaks havoc with our overall vibration – and we all know that to have a clear conscious connection with Spirit, we must have a high vibration. We might thus say that any relationship that is passionate and/or full of drama is “bad” for our spiritual growth. (Again, however, if we are IN it, there is a good reason we’re there.)

It is possible to maintain both romance and a strong spiritual path, but to do so, we have to remain conscious that we are caught up in illusion when we are feeling “in love.” This is sort of like living in the world but not of it, except in this case, we are living “in love,” but romance is not the whole point of our existence. Some might think this would take a lot of the pleasure out of romance, but I think the opposite is true: it makes romance a much lighter, easier endeavor. When we know that romance is just about having fun, and that ultimately, our happiness and well-being do NOT depend on the state of any human relationship, we can enjoy it a lot more.

– Soul Arcanum

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He’s Attracted to the Dark Side

Filed Under: Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on He’s Attracted to the Dark Side

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I have been in the Work for some 30 years, but I have not found the peace or satisfaction one would expect after moving through this spiritual journey’s many trials. In fact, I am increasingly tempted to embrace the dark side, and use what I know for my own fame and fortune. As I happened on your website, I believe I’m supposed to be set straight by something you say to me. I have so much good to say, but I’ve been a voice in the wilderness for far too long, and wonder if I’ve been wasting my time and effort. I cannot just die feeling so far away from any resonance with God/dess and a higher plan. I am highly intelligent, have saved a few lives, inspired a few students and had some wonderful lovers. I feel like I am under some kind of curse and don’t know how to lift it. I was born 20 hours later than Harold Shipman, the English serial killer doctor, and I well appreciate how he got like he did. (I’m a Capricorn with Gemini and Virgo rising, a Saturn/Mars conjunction in Cancer opposing my Sun and Venus, all squaring my Jupiter in Libra.)
– Gary

Dear Gary:

First, I’m no astrologer. While I often see a lot of truth in astrology, I’m a firm believer in not taking it too seriously. Even if you were born under the sign of The Great Evil One on the night of a blood red Moon, you are NOT destined to struggle against your own dark side forever. To free yourself of this supposed “curse” and move on to a higher course of experience, stop comparing yourself to a serial killer!

That said, I’m so glad you mentioned your desire for fame and fortune. Your honesty and self-awareness have illuminated the “problem,” which happens to involve the greatest spiritual challenge humankind has ever faced. While it’s been known by many names (including plain old “evil”), these days it’s most commonly known as “ego” – though we might as well go ahead and call it “ignorance.”

Yes, despite what many well-intentioned New Age folks may tell you, there is such a thing as evil in the Universe. In my book, something is “evil” when it is ignorant of natural spiritual law, which tells us that what we do will come back to us and then some. Thus when we intentionally disregard others’ needs in lieu of some selfish or self-centered desire, we are ignorant of the fact that we will end up hurting ourselves most of all.

When I was first awakening spiritually and spontaneously experiencing amazing psychic phenomena, I assumed that I must be beyond the pull of the ego to have “made it that far.” (Ha!) As you and I now both know, the more “success” we experience in any realm, including the spiritual, the bigger the ego challenges get. This actually just makes sense; the greater our “genius,” the more special we will tend to feel.

Another shocking truth that hit me somewhere along the line was that we don’t have to be “good” to gain psychic powers any more than we have to be truly healthy in order to lose weight. Taking a foolish path to any goal, however, is ultimately self-defeating. You can actually manifest a strong spiritual connection AND fame and fortune, but you have to believe this is possible and be willing to invest yourself in making it happen.

Let’s work with the weight loss example for a moment. Say you would both like to be healthy AND lose thirty pounds. To achieve both goals, you would have to eat healthy food and exercise. If you are impatient or unwilling to make certain sacrifices, you may choose to binge and purge, eat 1200 calories a day of cookies and potato chips, or starve yourself so you don’t have to exercise at all, etc.

Similarly, to cultivate a strong spiritual connection AND enjoy fame and fortune, you would have to resist “unhealthy” temptations and be willing to invest discipline, time and energy in a truly constructive approach. Otherwise, like crash dieters who both ruin their health and end up regaining all their weight, you will end up losing both your spiritual connection and your fame and fortune in the end.

What you really want on all levels is a sense of true fulfillment. Sometimes you mentally associate fulfillment with a strong spiritual connection, and sometimes you associate it with fame and fortune. This thinking is illusionary. In truth, you can either choose Spirit AND the fulfillment of your desires, or a path of endless yearning.

When we choose from ego, no amount of fame and fortune (sex, affection, or any other pleasure) will fulfill us for long. By contrast, when we align with Spirit, we align with inner peace regardless of outside circumstances. So when you are tempted toward the “dark side” in hopes of fame and fortune, you are actually thwarting the fulfillment of your desires on all levels.

The ego does not live in awareness of higher truths, and thus it endlessly tempts us to do foolish and ultimately self-defeating things. If we listen to the ego, in the end we may get what we think we want – be it fame and fortune, a certain lover, or even psychic ability – but we won’t like what we have. For example, those who pursue psychic ability out of ego-driven desires may succeed but then regret it when they are plagued by dark and even terrifying experiences.

Like it or not, it takes a certain amount of wisdom, character and discipline to safely wield “higher” powers. When it comes to spiritual work, which is non-physical in nature, it is especially important to purify the mind and heart and to align with higher forces.

Imagine that in exploring spiritual realms, you are traveling into a wild jungle. If you align with forces of love and light, you are traveling with a vast “army” of entities that are dedicated to protecting you, guiding you and helping you fulfill your aims. If you don’t align with forces of love and light, you’re on your own. Worse, if you align with the “dark side” or are even drawn toward the notion, you move into a camp full of rogues and criminals who would be more likely to steal all your provisions and leave you naked in the swamp than to watch your back.

My point in all of this is that you don’t have to be selfless to find fulfillment in life. While this may sound contradictory, if you are driven by self-interest, it only makes sense to conquer the foolish ego by humbly aligning with higher powers, for that alignment will bring both peace AND the power to fulfill all your desires in a way that harms no one else.

Though I may be able to accurately predict the future and bring through evidential information from Spirit, I am not the amazing one – I have just dedicated myself as a channel for the Divine. I know that if I start to take credit for these wonderful works, my abilities will begin to slip. I have actually seen this time and time again with psychics and mediums: as soon as they achieve a measure of acclaim, their egos kick in, and before you know it, they’re not a fraction as good as they were when they were first getting started, and their success soon slips away.

You seem disturbed that after all this time, you’re still struggling. As I explained, the ego/evil will tempt us all our lives. Every time we show any weakness, we let temptation get a foot in the door; every time we nip weakness in the bud, we gain power over it. This happens both psychologically and literally: every time you succumb to the temptation of dark thoughts, you open yourself up to the influence of dark entities. To free yourself of these dark forces, you must exercise personal strength and discipline.

After 30 years of spiritual work, I imagine you have a firm grasp on the laws of karma. Intellectually, you thus know that bad short-cuts never lead anywhere good. Ultimately and in every way, it always pays to take the high road.

– Soul Arcanum

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She’s Weary of Her Spiritual Mentor

Filed Under: Divine Guidance, Intuitive Development, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on She’s Weary of Her Spiritual Mentor

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

Lately I have felt stagnant in my spiritual growth and practices. I had a friend that was kind of like a mentor to me, but within the past six months, I have grown very tired of her and weary of anyone trying to “mentor” me. Am I being stubborn, going through my own growing pains, or is it something else?
– Jennifer

Dear Jennifer:

I do feel you are being stubborn – not because you are resistant to others’ guidance, but because you are resistant to letting go of relationships you have outgrown.

As we grow and evolve, we are led to the people and experiences that can help us learn what we need to learn next or become what we want to become. When we first discover those people or experiences, we feel strongly attracted to them. This is our inner guidance telling us that we’ve found what we’ve been looking for. Our feelings of interest and excitement are signs from our inner compass that we should go in this direction. This is why it is wise to “follow our bliss.”

As time goes on, that which once was blissful and exciting naturally loses some of its shine. Challenges arise. Now we’ll either move beyond the surface to deeper levels of understanding, or lose interest and move on. This holds true both for new teachings/practices and for new relationships.

Think about it: when we first make a new friend or start dating a new lover, that person seems wonderful and fascinating. After a while we get beneath the surface, however, where things are more complicated. In addition to all the good things that first attracted us, we discover new stuff that we struggle to understand. We may not be sure what to think of it, and spend a good amount of time really weighing it out. That “struggle” is at the heart of personal growth.

If we hang in there, over time we learn how to work it all out: how to be patient and understanding with these new issues and push through the rough spots. If this relationship or practice really works for us, we may stick with it indefinitely and make it our own. If it continues to bring us joy and blessings, that will be easy. If it brings new lessons and challenges, we’ll be motivated to keep it alive – at least as long as our desire for growth outweighs our fears and insecurities.

If, however, we discover that there isn’t much for us to chew on beneath that surface, we’ll start to experience feelings of stagnation, boredom, frustration, etc. These are signs that we have outgrown the relationship or situation.

As we are always looking for “the answer,” “the key,” or “the one,” when we find something or someone that feels like it might be it, we tend to grab it with both hands and refuse to let go. We want it to be all we have been looking for, so we define it as such. Then later when we’ve outgrown it, if we fail to redefine it in light of all we’ve learned, we may feel confused because it doesn’t “do it” for us anymore.

Just because a certain person, practice, course of study, etc., is what we most need at one time, that doesn’t mean it will always be what we need. Even something of great power can become a hindrance if we cling to it too long. We can no more force ourselves to stay in relationships or situations that we’ve outgrown than we can force ourselves to wear the same pants we adored when we were six years old. Over time, they will become more and more uncomfortable until we finally discard them for something that fits better.

This is a natural process. It doesn’t mean we’re missing something, failing to appreciate our blessings or resisting our lessons. If you felt angry, inadequate, overwhelmed or challenged, I’d recommend you look within for how you may be resisting the wisdom and experience this teacher may have to offer, especially if you admire her and would like to become more like her.

By contrast, boredom, weariness and indifference are signs that it is time to move on. When we find ourselves saying, “I’m so tired of” this or that, or “This is getting really ‘old,'” it’s time to ask ourselves why we’re still in that situation. Usually, it’s because despite our lack of interest, we’re still living according to that obsolete definition, which keeps us hanging on.

To get unstuck, you just need to update your mental files and redefine this teacher’s role in your life in light of where you are NOW. It doesn’t really matter what you once got out of this relationship; what matters is how well it fits who you have become and where you want to go in your life from here.

While it’s wonderful to be grateful to everyone who blesses us with new wisdom and experiences, gratitude is not the same as obligation. Let go of any guilt you’re feeling about wanting to move on so you can celebrate how far you’ve come!

Now, this teacher aside, everyone on a conscious spiritual path at some point grows weary of others trying to mentor them. This is a very important turning point. I feel your inner being is telling you that you don’t need to be led by anyone outside of yourself anymore. Your next step on your spiritual journey will involve you developing your own conscious connection to Spirit and listening within for your own answers. You may still take classes or read books, but instead of assuming these writers and teachers know more than you do, you will weigh all input against your own inner wisdom.

You’re very wise to be questioning yourself. That means you have developed the ability to rise above your ego for higher awareness. It’s ironic: the more we can ask ourselves if we are just being “stubborn” due to ego issues, the less likely it is that this is true. Since you’re able to question your reaction objectively, I feel that you need to trust your feelings and honor them by doing what does feel right and best.

None of this means that you’ve learned everything there is to learn! It means now you have learned enough to dig in to a new level of experience, to apply what you’ve been taught and make some new discoveries of your own. This is very exciting.

It can be unnerving to begin to forge our own spiritual trail. It’s sort of like moving from a reader of great books to a writer of great books, or like moving from a child to an adult. Instead of trusting others to take care of us, guide us, and have all the answers, now we have to figure things out for ourselves.

Nevertheless, just as a child grows and realizes that her parents are not all-powerful and do not have all the answers, at some point in our spiritual journeys, we also realize that our gurus are not gods, and there is no one person out there with all the answers we’ve been seeking. While we can still learn from others, we realize that no one is a greater authority on our own spiritual truth than we are. No one else can direct us on our spiritual journeys better than we can ourselves by listening within for guidance and answers.

So when friends, jobs, teachers, etc. grow weary for you, ask yourself why you’re still there. Odds are good it is because you just haven’t updated your mental files on this situation in light of what you’ve learned and who and where you are now, or you’ve grown accustomed to being led and are reluctant to forge your own trail.

Whenever you feel stuck, call to mind the things in your life that you’re weary of, and for a moment, ponder how they are just one tiny possibility in an infinite sea of potential. Think of how many spiritual teachers there are! Contemplate how many friends, lovers, jobs, books, ideas, etc., you’ve yet to encounter. Let the immensity of all that potential stir your soul and draw you out of what has been into all that could be. If you listen to your weariness, it will eventually guide you into exciting new beginnings and discoveries.

– Soul Arcanum

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