Tag Archive: spiritual guidance


How to Dialogue with Spirit

Filed Under: Divine Guidance by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on How to Dialogue with Spirit

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I have many times heard the term “dialogue with Spirit.” This notion feels very appealing to me even though I’m not sure exactly what it means. Can you explain a bit about how to dialogue with Spirit and what we can gain from doing so?

Evelyn

Dear Evelyn:

This is a favorite subject of mine, for when we make a habit of dialoguing with Spirit, we receive helpful signs and experience amazing synchronicities. By “dialogue with Spirit,” I mean asking to be guided and then watching for meaningful events, signs and messages as well as listening within for answers.

By way of example, I’ll relate a recent experience in which I asked Spirit a question and got a clear, immediate response. I had been visiting some young people I’m very fond of who are avowed atheists and also incredibly bright. The more time I spent with them, the more I started to question my own views even though they are soundly founded on direct personal experiences.

As I was flying home from this visit, I was reading a book about synchronicity, which reminded me to ask Spirit for a sign or message about whether I was right to be questioning my beliefs. (In my view, our beliefs should always be open to revision, so questioning them is a good thing.) I took a moment and focused on the question in my mind and heart, and asked Spirit to send me a sign either confirming my existing views or validating the need for me to question them.

No sooner had I sent this request out to the Universe than the man sitting beside me on the plane pulled out an e-book and started reading. I noted with some interest that he was reading the Bible; I found this interesting since I was also reading spiritual material but of a much different nature. As I pondered this, I got an intuitive “nudge” to surreptitiously read over his shoulder. When I did so, I discovered the following passage from Galatians:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse! Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

While I’m certainly not in harmony with the whole “curse” element of this passage, to me the message was crystal clear: don’t question the beliefs you have already built upon a sound foundation of personal experience (direct revelation). When I reflected upon this further, I realized that I was succumbing to my old nemesis: worrying that people I love and respect will think I’m crazy for believing the things I believe. I have for years had to overcome this concern in order to put my relationship with Spirit first regardless of what other people may think of me.

When we are congruent with receiving a sign from Spirit, by which I mean we believe this is possible and wholly expect it to happen, and are high enough in vibration to manifest fulfillment, the signs we request can come to us this quickly and clearly.

Dialoguing with Spirit is very simple. Basically, you just have to consciously ask for signs, messages, and other forms of guidance, and then pay attention to what happens next. This is an internal process that is more than mental; you have to ask with your whole being. You can ask with your mind and heart, or you can write down your request and place it in a special box or on your meditation altar.

For this to work, you have to be above ego so you can be objective; otherwise you will tend to see what you want to see and hear what you want to hear. It’s also important to be open to signs coming to you in unusual or unexpected ways. For example, you will greatly limit your experience if you say something like: “If I am meant to go forward with my plan to adopt a child, then my boss will walk in my office in the next five minutes and somehow work the word adoption into the conversation.” While it’s not impossible for things like this to happen (I’ve had some amazing signs from Spirit over the years), it is far easier for Spirit to deliver the answers we’re looking for if we allow Spirit to work out the details. A better request would be to ask for the subject of adoption to come up frequently for us over the next three days, and to evaluate those specific instances for guidance on whether or not we should move forward.

You can set up your own rules. Many people ask Spirit to deliver signs in threes so they know they aren’t creating self-fulfilling prophecies. Personally, I just listen to and trust my intuition. Signs have a special feeling to them; they get your attention and make you wonder if something meaningful is happening. Seemingly remarkable experiences can be mere coincidences if they don’t carry this special feeling, while ordinary events may be signs if they nudge us to pay attention.

You can also set up personal symbols and omens of a permanent or temporary nature. For example, a friend of mine has asked the Universe to show her gifts or presents when she is going to get what she thinks she wants. When she then receives gifts or notices others giving and receiving gifts, she knows that what she wants is on its way to her. Back when I was dating my firefighter husband and wondering about our future together, I told Spirit to send me firetrucks if my sense that we would one day be married was accurate. For weeks, I saw fire trucks everywhere I went.

The more you ask for guidance from Spirit in this way, the more will come to you. Further, the more open your beliefs and expectations, the more this will tend to happen in amazing, unmistakable ways. Making a habit of dialoguing with Spirit is a powerful way to navigate through the endless challenges and opportunities life sends our way.

Often when we’re lost and confused, we forget to simply ask Spirit for answers. We don’t have to wait until we’re desperate; we can ask at any time. If you begin to dialogue with Spirit in your own way, you’ll receive helpful guidance for improving your life, and your everyday reality will begin to grow more magical and meaningful in delightful, inspiring ways.

Soul Arcanum


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Starting on a Spiritual Path

Filed Under: Divine Guidance, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Starting on a Spiritual Path


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Dear Soul Arcanum:

I feel the need for greater balance in my life. At the moment, what I lack most is spiritual fulfillment. What would be a good way for me to start on this path? Where should I go to begin seeking spiritual guidance? There are so many paths out there; how do I know which is right for me? Since I am a Christian, numerous people have suggested that I go back to church, but the attraction is just not there. When I do go to church, the spiritual void I feel remains unfilled. Others have suggested that I try exploring other paths like Buddhism. Where do you suggest I start?

Michelle

Dear Michelle:

You are already doing the most important thing: you are listening within and allowing yourself to be led to what you really need. You are also trusting your feelings to determine what does and does not feel right to you.

God/Spirit/the Universe whispers to us in our own hearts. The only way to determine the right path for us is to pay attention to how we feel and trust that what we long to do is what we are meant to do. Unfortunately, this is a far cry from what most of us have been taught. In my view, the “the Church” generally teaches people to distrust themselves. They are urged to follow a prefabricated set of rules instead of allowing their own heart and conscience to guide them to right action. Traditionally, the church has also asserted that one needs a priest to serve as intermediary between oneself and “God.” The Church not only discouraged a personal relationship with the divine, it suggested that for most people, this was an impossibility.

That being said, I believe traditional religion does have its place. People who are more rooted in their base instincts than a quest for spiritual growth are much like sheep who need shepherding. This is a natural stage in our spiritual evolution that we probably all passed through at some point. However, it is also natural to outgrow this stage: to start to question what we’ve been taught, think for ourselves, and hunger for direct personal experience in order to build a solid belief system. It sounds like you have recently reached that point in your own spiritual evolution.

The first step is to trust that your desire is trying to guide you. Allow yourself to go exploring with trust in your own interests, desires, instincts and intuitions. You might begin exploring by going to a local spiritual/metaphysical bookstore to peruse the possibilities. If you are in an open, relaxed frame of mind and trusting of your intuition, you will feel drawn to certain subjects and titles. Many people even have strange experiences where books fall off the shelves at their feet or strangers strike up a conversation during which they recommend titles.

While you’re there, check the bulletin board for a listing of classes, seminars, workshops, practitioners, groups and other offerings. There will probably also be a local spiritual magazine with articles by local teachers, a calendar of classes and events, and lots of ads for local spiritual practitioners of various sorts. You will discover options you’ve never even heard of before. Don’t become overwhelmed; if you listen within and trust your own interests and instincts, your intuition will guide you.

Sometimes we don’t feel called to a certain path simply because we haven’t yet stumbled upon the path that is right for us. If you are only considering whether to go back to church or explore Buddhism and neither of these paths is the one for you, then it’s no wonder you’re not getting a clear sense of direction. By exploring all the options available to you, you are more likely to hit upon something that really speaks to you.

Now that you’ve selected some books, start reading! One book and subject will naturally lead you to another and another. If you keep trusting your own curiosity to guide you, you will never run out of paths to explore. Similarly, if you have hit upon a class, group, or other local offering that seems intriguing, check it out.

A word of caution: no path is “perfect.” Just as you wouldn’t expect to like everything on the menu at your favorite restaurant, you probably won’t love every aspect and tenet of a particular path. Though I have had some wonderful spiritual teachers in my life, I haven’t agreed 100% with any of them.

Next, pick a spiritual practice you feel drawn to. This may be a certain form of meditation, an exercise like yoga or tai chi, chanting, prayer, or even community service. Whatever you choose, give it some time before you decide if it’s really for you or not. This will take some discipline and devotion. Getting spiritually in shape is a bit like getting physically in shape: if you judge a certain form of exercise based on how it feels the first couple of times you do it, you’re likely to give up before you begin to see its benefits.

Next, keep in mind that you are constantly creating your own experience of life. You can use the law of attraction to manifest spiritual abundance just as you would use it to manifest financial abundance. I count my understanding of the law of attraction as the most precious spiritual knowledge I’ve been blessed with this lifetime. No matter what you desire, working with the law of attraction is the way to get it. For this reason, I encourage you to study the law of attraction and start using what you learn to manifest the spiritual guidance and fulfillment you long for.

Do keep in mind that if you keep telling the Universe, “I don’t know what to do. I feel lost and empty,” then you will get more of that same sort of experience. If you tell the Universe, “I want magic! I want a clear sense of spiritual direction and deep sense of spiritual fulfillment” and you imagine how it will feel when you get that, then you will naturally begin to attract what you desire.

Finally, start a dialog with Spirit. Instead of just asking questions in your mind and heart, listen for insights and answers. Ask for signs to come to you and honor the ones you receive by acting on them. It’s wise to ask for signs to come in threes so you’re sure that they are what they seem to be.

Many years ago, I was in a similar place. I was having all sorts of spontaneous spirit communication experiences but I was far from being able to control or initiate them. I felt called to try to help people with this gift but since I couldn’t control it, that path seemed closed to me. Then I prayed to Spirit. I basically said, “If this is what I’m meant to do, then show me how I can learn to use this gift in a purposeful way.” Within two weeks, three different people had mentioned Lily Dale, New York, to me. This got my attention and I just “knew” I should go there. When I visited, I saw the school I ended up attending advertised on a flier, and I just knew I was going to go to the school. It wasn’t even so much that I knew I wanted to go to the school – I knew I was going to do it. This school proved to be the answer to my prayers.

You ask where you should begin to seek spiritual guidance. I recommend you stop asking other people (including me), and start asking God/the Universe/Spirit – whatever label you personally put on the source of intuition and inspiration. This is a very exciting time for you, my friend. May this new journey bless you with faith, wonder, and the spiritual fulfillment you desire.

Soul Arcanum

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Finding Your Life Purpose

Filed Under: Destiny/Higher Plan, Divine Guidance, Emotional Well-being by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Finding Your Life Purpose


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Dear Soul Arcanum:

Many people talk about the higher purpose of life and our reason for incarnating. This has always been so confusing to me, for most of us seem to busily pursuing material possessions and the accumulation of wealth. Is there any higher purpose to life? If so, how can an individual discover his or her life purpose in order to pursue it? I’m sure no one wants to leave this world not having fulfilled their highest purpose. I would be grateful if you shared your thoughts on this matter.

Muralidhar

Dear Muralidhar:

There are indeed all sorts of ideas about the higher purpose of life on Earth. Most people look to religion for such explanations. I’m in harmony with some of the teachings of all the major religions, such as the Christian focus on love and faith and the Buddhist belief in karma and reincarnation. I’m in greatest harmony with the oldest religion, Hinduism, and its core teachings that we are all part of God, and through learning and growing via the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, we can progress toward enlightenment and eventually remerge with our Divine Source.

My personal views are based on the information I’ve received from Spirit throughout twenty years of spiritual reading work in combination with research into the near death experience and life between life therapy. (In life between life therapy, people are regressed to the period between lifetimes to review their plans for their next lives as well as all sorts of other very deep spiritual issues.) The main tenets of all of these sources mesh well, which suggests that even though I may not be able to firmly grasp the entire picture, I am honing in on some big truths.

The two main life purpose themes that emerge time after time in my own experience as a channeler of Spirit and in the NDE and LBL research are the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom and the development of an ever greater capacity for selfless love. While we all share this general life purpose, how that translates for each individual is of course unique. I believe we make our own plans for each life before incarnating, and that these plans are based on the karmic lessons and issues of previous lives combined with the desire to move to higher levels of learning and development.

The higher purpose for our life does not equate to a set plan, however, for we always have free will. In fact, once we get here in the physical, it can be very challenging to stay on track. This is why life on Earth is such a powerful learning experience: when we are plunged into this dramatic situation where we have to find a way to survive and get all our physical and emotional needs met, we tend to forget about the higher truths and lessons our soul is hoping to master.

The analogy of Earth as a school is popular because it is so apt. When we first begin the incarnation cycle, our lessons are simpler and more mundane in nature. There are people whose goal is to simply learn how to work with their divine creative power in order to create the material things they need to physically survive and enjoy life. Often when people graduate from learning how to physically survive, they spend a lifetime or two “playing” with their newfound power to manifest <q>the good life.</q> Eventually, this naturally gets boring and they start to ponder deeper questions and issues, at which point they begin a conscious spiritual journey. (They’ve been on a spiritual journey the whole time, of course, but they may not have been so conscious about it.)

To denigrate others’ goals and values is a bit like a college student sneering at kids who are just learning arithmetic; we’ve all had to go through the same basic lessons, so just because those classes no longer challenge or interest us is no reason to put them down. In fact, I’ve often seen that people who have been through a very difficult journey in life are being prepared to fulfill a very high life purpose. Their highest destiny is to move through the experience to the other side of it so they can become a source of help and healing to other people who are going through the same thing. In order to help people, we have to understand what they’re going through, so people destined to become great healers may go through years of darkness and misery.

In some ways, we are all always living our higher purpose, for whatever we’re going through is what we need to experience in order to grow into a higher level of experience. Thus we see people who have been touched by cancer creating cancer charities and support groups, and people who have lived some very dark years battling addiction becoming mentors and healers for other addicts.

To determine your own higher purpose, it’s wise to listen to your own life story and trust that it is leading you to the knowledge, experience and wisdom you need. It’s also important to honor and trust your passions and interests, for these are also trying to guide you to fulfill your destiny. This is how my own life’s work came about: I experienced the death of my first love at a very tender age, which made me all too familiar with grief and encouraged me to develop great compassion for the grieving. I also had amazing spiritual experiences that produced unwavering faith in an afterlife. As my own journey ultimately led me to profound healing, I developed a strong desire to help others discover the peace I had found.

Perhaps our highest destiny is to find or create something good out of our suffering. It doesn’t matter exactly what form it takes, the point is to transmute the darkness we encounter into something light. With this in mind, some key questions to help you determine your own life purpose include:

What unusual or extraordinary experiences have I suffered through? How can I turn my own struggles into something positive? What am I most passionate about or interested in?

Please note that your higher purpose in life does not necessarily relate to what you do to earn a living. Since someone has to build the houses and grow the food, what people do for a living should never be taken as a sign of how evolved they are spiritually. By way of a very famous example, someone can be the very embodiment of wisdom and unconditional love but work as a humble carpenter. In fact, having simple, straight forward sort of job can bless us with the time and mental energy to pursue higher aims.

Also, having psychic experiences does not necessarily mean you are meant to become a psychic professional. I often hear from people who have been having psychic experiences and want to know what they’re “supposed” to do with them. Since we are all psychic to some degree, that’s a bit like saying that lately we’ve been hearing noises and we want to know what we’re supposed to do with our ability to hear. What we do with our gifts and talents all depends on what we want and/or feel called to do.

To determine your higher purpose and find a way to fulfill it, you must listen to your intuitions, insights and conscience, for it is through these channels that you receive guidance and direction from your soul. The more you work with processes like meditation in order to clearly hear your higher self, the more you will tend to fulfill your higher plan for this lifetime. With this in mind, perhaps the most direct and powerful way to determine your life purpose is to engage in life between life therapy. For more information on this amazing process, I recommend books by Michael Newton, Ph.D., who wrote Journey of Souls, Destiny of Souls and Life Between Lives: Hypnotherapy for Spiritual Regression.

– Soul Arcanum

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Receiving Spiritual Guidance via Dreams

Filed Under: Divine Guidance, Dreams by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Receiving Spiritual Guidance via Dreams

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Dear Soul Arcanum:

I am a Hindu by religion. Recently sages or ascetics have been appearing in my dreams and preaching some mantras. The problem is that I forget them totally after I awake. What does this indicate?
Dr. Rao

Dear Dr. Rao:

For those who are unfamiliar, in the Hindu tradition it’s considered wise and powerful for spiritual seekers to have a guru (spiritual teacher) to guide them through the twists and turns of the journey to enlightenment. These gurus are usually physically incarnate, but they can also be beings from beyond this dimension.

Whether they are incarnate or not, they may visit their students in dreams and even manifest to them across great distances when they are awake. It’s unclear if they leave their bodies via astral projection to achieve this feat or if they somehow bi-locate. (Great spiritual masters are said to be capable of all sorts of amazing feats, and are known to be highly cryptic when questioned.)

It’s also believed that gurus, sages and ascended masters will sometimes visit a student in his dreams to initiate him into a higher level of spiritual power and experience. This may be achieved by giving the student a special mantra to chant during meditation or by delivering some profound spiritual knowledge/wisdom. This initiation sparks the release of kundalini and thus a new level of spiritual awakening for the student.

A mantra is a word, phrase, or collection of sounds designed to lift one into a higher vibration or achieve a certain aim. Many people are familiar with the mantras Om, and Om mani padme hum. There are many mantras common to certain spiritual paths, such as those of kundalini yoga.

It is said that a mantra that is given to a student by a guru is far more powerful than a common one, for it is personal to the student and is charged with the guru’s divine essence and wisdom. In fact, some say that when the guru gives the mantra to the student by speaking it out loud, the student may be spontaneously awakened at that very moment by its power.

Our dreams reveal much about who we are deep down and where we are spiritually at the time. When we have recurring nightmares, for example, we know that there are some big fears at work deep in our psyches. When we have generally pleasant dreams, it’s a sign that we’re on top of things in our waking lives. Remembering dreams like the ones you describe is unusual, for these are the dreams of a highly developed spiritual seeker.

We all work out problems and receive guidance in our dreams. Most of the time when we dream of spirit guides, we don’t realize that is what’s happening. In our dreams, spirit guides may take the form of another person who tells us where to go or what to do. We may dream of sitting in a classroom, listening intently to a teacher lecture, but not be able to remember anything that was said. (This is entirely different from dreaming that we’re in school again and can’t get our locker open or haven’t done our homework.) Spirit guides may also appear in dreams as doctors, therapists, coaches or healers of some kind. They can even get messages through to us by simply speaking as a disembodied voice or creating a scene we watch in the dream like we might watch a television show.

I believe that the spirit guide many of us experience as a nameless, faceless presence in our minds is often that part of us that remains in the Spirit world – what some may call our own higher self. I also know that we can communicate with our own selves in other times and dimensions; thus our future selves can deliver a message to our current selves and come across as a different individual.

I mention this because I believe the key to consciously accessing spiritual guidance is to trust in our own higher selves/inner wisdom, for this is the bridge between our conscious mind and all that lies beyond this world. I don’t think it really matters whether the guidance we need comes to us from our higher selves, a spirit guide or a guru, or even if these are fundamentally different in nature: the important thing is to be able to work with our experiences in a constructive way.

To draw information from dreams into our waking awareness, we need to create a bridge between the subconscious and the conscious mind. I assume you’re already writing your dreams down as soon as you awake. If not, this is the first thing to try. If you make a habit of this, it will get easier to remember your dreams, and you will also attract more spiritual guidance through them. It’s like telling the Universe: I’m paying attention now, so send more my way!

You can also program yourself before you go to sleep to dream of whatever you want or need at that time. When you close your eyes, affirm that you will not only receive what you’re wanting in your dreams, you will also clearly remember it all when you awake. You may also find it powerful to develop the ability to lucid dream and astral project. This will enable you to visit with spirit guides and gurus and forge a strong bridge between your conscious and subconscious, which will make a far broader range of spiritual insights and experiences available to you.

To consciously access your guide while you’re awake, you need to raise your vibration and then alter your state of consciousness. You can do this most readily via hypnosis or guided meditation. The goal is to make what is subconscious conscious – to bridge the gap between the two. Basically, you will reenter the dream state while maintaining at least a thread of conscious awareness.

As this is tricky, it can be very helpful to have a skilled hypnotherapist guide you. The therapist can then ask you questions and record your answers should you not be able to remember what you experienced when you are brought back to full conscious awareness. If I were working with you as a hypnotherapist, I would guide you into a very deep trance, into a dream within a dream within a dream. Once you were there, I’d have you recall the dream in which you received the mantra, and simply ask you, If you could remember the mantra, what would it be? If that failed, I’d dialogue directly with the spirit guide through you.

Your own higher self can guide you to what you’re seeking, but to do this, you must get into a high vibration and then let your conscious mind step aside and your intuition take over. If I were you, I’d get into a high vibration via yoga and meditation and then just begin to tone. Start by vocalizing an Ahhhhh sound, and then let your voice just open up. (It’s best to do this when you’re home alone, so you don’t feel inhibited.) Allow your voice to shift as it will, and any pitches, words or sounds to just flow out. As you relax and open up, you’ll find that something begins to shift your voice without you being consciously aware that it is going to happen, and soon you’ll be repeating tones, melodies, words and phrases, which may lead you to the perfect mantra for you.

Finally, it’s wise to trust in our experiences – even the blocks that frustrate us. There is a reason why we remember some things and not others. So if you can’t remember this mantra for now, it may be that you’re doing work in your dreams that you’re not meant to be doing yet in waking life. At the same time, you can trust that your keen desire to remember is leading you somewhere, so keep pursuing this – just do so with trust that you will have what you desire when the time is right for you.

– Soul Arcanum

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