Finding Peace Within the Eye of the Storm

The world as we know it has changed, and changed rapidly.  The impacts of these changes are far-reaching for many and felt by all.  Many new and serious challenges have arisen, not least high levels of unemployment leading to financial hardship; relationship and emotional challenges, and greater stress, anxiety, isolation and loneliness.

From the depths of these challenges something is also stirring out of its own isolation – this is our soul.  As is often said, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.  Our soul is calling us to use the challenges we face at this time to shed our karmic blockages.  Incoming energy influxes are supporting these shifts.  There is a silver lining to all of this.

Many Hindus say we are in the latter stage of Kali Yuga, the age of darkness, degradation and ignorance.  Some however insist we are in the stage before that, where there is also great conflict, called Dwapara Yuga.

I don’t think it matters, this is an intellectual exercise primarily, interesting though it may be.  The point is that we can see that planet earth and humanity are very challenged at this time, whatever this age may be called.

And we may speak about humanity, the collective, we, us, our…..but the call of this age is that we as individuals make changes in our own consciousness, not just believe we are doing that by simply riding the collective wave.  As the great and humorous sage Osho somewhat starkly said:

Only the individual can rise to the heights of consciousness and  awareness.  The more you belong to the crowd, the deeper you fall into darkness. – Osho

The real revolution occurs one by one.  It’s vital we do our inner work of self enquiry.  Only you as an individual can do the work you need to do, noone else can or will do it for you.

Society is the outward expression of man. The conflict between himself and society is the conflict within himself. – Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Good and Evil

The concept of evil is a time-worn concept.  It is surfacing at this time due to great concerns for the future of this world.

I see the concept of good and evil from the point of view of universal laws – the principles governing life behind the scenes.  Specifically, the law of duality or balance.  From this place we can find an empowering understanding of evil.

The law of balance dictates that everything must have an opposite: up/down, here/there, good/bad, us/them, me/you, male/female, hot/cold, inside/outside, black/white, true/untrue, to be/not be,  right/wrong, and so on and so forth.

Where there is an up there must be a down – if ‘down’ did not exist we would not be able to conceptualise ‘up’.  Similarly good also has its ‘bad’ or ‘evil’ counterpart.  For us to experience light, we have to experience darkness, otherwise we would not be able to understand the power of light.  We need darkness to understand light.  So darkness or evil present us with an opportunity for understanding and shedding our own shadow, without which we would not be able to fully embrace light.  And this is the opportunity we have now in this world.

Darkness / evil plays a role so that others can learn to love and forgive.

Human beings need a push to wake up, to love, to forgive.  The stakes often need to high for us to change our ways.  Without this push nothing much usually changes.

Have you noticed how adversity often ends up being a blessing in disguise?  We get to do and be things we would not have otherwise ventured to do and be.  So someone or something has to play the role of the adversary – of evil / darkness.

Just to be clear, this isn’t about condoning evil or darkness.  We must call a spade a spade and each must be accountable for the suffering caused to others, especially if this occurs through conscious choice.  Rather, this is about recognizing the role that darkness plays.

Interestingly, ‘evil’ is ‘live’ spelled backwards.  And ‘devil’ is ‘lived’ spelled backwards.  So let’s choose to live over evil.  And in the context of this post, to live means to raise our vibrations.  The good news is that we are co-creators and beings of Light, and we can change our vibrations.

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Looking Inward

In simple terms you have a divine spark that is eternal.

Essentially it’s all about looking inward and being authentic.  And about embodying our truth.

For example, if we are angry with someone, to be authentic we need to call it just that – our anger – and we need to take responsibility for it, rather than projecting out and judging that person to justify what we are feeling.  If we name it, we tame it. Naming it is often the hardest part. We can then examine this further and do inner processing to rise above the anger and arrive at a higher perspective.  Of course this is an ongoing process and it isn’t easy to rise above all those lower emotions we humans feel so frequently, it may also take a long time to rise above certain embedded emotions that have been there a long while…..but we don’t need to be perfect.  The purpose isn’t to be a saint.  The purpose is to remember our innate truth.

And as we do this inner work, we gain more and more experience of that which is not anger, and our experience of peace and joy thus grows.

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Commitment to Peace

There needs to be commitment to peace, as well as to not creating pain for ourselves or others. All too often we crave drama.

Without this commitment, when darkness visits, we unconsciously give up our own power and opt for lower emotions because it’s just easier, it’s what we’re used to.  So we have to want a different experience for ourselves.  We have to be fed up or tired of the usual limiting patterns we find ourselves in time and time again.

The key to wanting something different, apart from being tired of it, is to give up attachment to pain.

We humans love to suffer.  Many people love drama – usually negative, though sometimes just any drama.  It makes them feel alive, and keeps the dreaded boredom at bay.  Attachment to negative drama can be very subtle, or it can get to pathological levels as with malignant narcissism, for example.  Negative personal situations as well as global chaos can feed into this need for drama.

The pain-body is an addiction to unhappiness. – Eckhart Tolle

So we have to de-program ourselves from attachment to pain and unhappiness.  This is often a pattern learnt in childhood.  It’s also the workings of the ego-mind that is totally determined to keep you busy at all times and the best way for it to do this is to throw up negative stuff constantly for you to get all preoccupied with.  So we have to want to get off this drama treadmill.  Usually this happens when we get really tired of the drama way of experiencing life.   And we start to get a sense of what peace actually feels like.  Then we start to want peace.

If we can also understand that darkness is a blessing we can raise our vibrations and perspective.  The blessing is the opportunity it provides for the Light.  In other words, we are meant to experience difficulties and suffering, otherwise we could not know what joy was, as per the natural laws of balance / duality.

Just as those playing the role of evil give us the opportunity to know what forgiveness and unconditional love really mean.

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Unhappiness as a Teacher

The experience of unhappiness is not wasted, it’s our teacher.  If we can even honour our unhappiness, we will be on the way to releasing it.  But trying to escape painful feelings by whatever means is a psychological and spiritual attack on ourselves, like a violence we do to ourselves, unacknowledged though this may be.

Imagine yourself as a baby you are holding in your arms – if baby is crying and in pain you will want to soothe it and take care of it, won’t you?

So when darkness visits allow ‘what is’ and take care of yourself with kindness.  Your inner child needs you.  Follow your truth.  Be authentic.  Don’t waste your energy in justifying your lower energies.

The cultivation of the attitude that pain and suffering is ok (however horrible it feels) allows you to accept it easier, and to use it for your own growth.

When I think of my own journey, I can see how unhappiness / suffering has been the greatest teacher of all, without which I would not be writing this now.  It’s made me stronger.  It’s brought me an understanding of my own pain body, and how much I actually want and value peace now.  It’s put me on the road to emotional mastery – and each time I fail to master the emotional body I know that more mastery and peace are just around the corner if I can be sincere and authentic – and take care of my own inner child.

The key is to use every painful moment as fuel for deeper self-awareness and for releasing the pain body.  And when we release the pain body, we find peace to be naturally occurring within us.  We don’t have to create peace – it is already present.   We find it right here.  This inner work is the greatest thing we can do for ourselves, our loved ones and all others in this life.  Moreover, at this time the work we do to raise our frequency, the more the power of the evil/dark weakens.

Your own Self-Realization is the greatest service you can render the world. – Ramana Maharshi

Interestingly, the way the planet’s frequencies are changing – rising – can be seen via the Schumann Resonances which measure the electromagnetic field of the earth.  This Twitter account recaps the resonances which makes it easier to get a grasp of each month.  Take a look at July 2020 and March 2020 for example.

       

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We Chose to be Here

We are not here on this earth by chance.  We are here because of pre-birth agreements.  We chose to be here.  We each have lessons to learn as well as gifts to offer the world.  Our Soul has a plan for us and when we leave this human incarnation and go home, we will be our own judge.  Though it’s not condemnation, more like assessment of how we did against what we set out for ourselves.  In our deepest depths, what we want most of all is to evolve and learn about Love.

So putting a lot of focus on accumulating wealth, success, fame, badges, trophies, umpteen Twitter followers and Facebook Likes, or any other external goals and ideas we may get consumed with to the exclusion of our inner journey, is ultimately missing the point.   And as we do awaken to our inner journey, those things loosen their attraction for us, for we get to know from deep down that those things are temporary things – stuff we will not care about when it really matters.

Nothing that is temporary has reality, only the One Permanent Thing upon which all the temporary things rest could be real. – Ramana Maharshi

The real business we’re in is a Divine business.  It’s the business of the Soul.

We are ultimately here to wake up to the truth of who we are in essence – Divine creator beings, God’s Light army.  It’s not easy to realize this in every moment.

[Just to say here that I use the word God freely on this website, the connotations that this word holds generally don’t matter much to me, though I should add that I use the word non-religiously.  In terms of names for God, here is a post with more than 200+ of names for God]

And it’s meant to be tricky.  It’s like a game – we come here forgetting who we really are by design, then we need to remember this through remembering who we are in truth.

I was reminded by a recent message that Love is the only real force that can change the world.  We all know this somewhere inside ourselves, or at least intellectually, because we are made of this very Love; but we find it difficult to put into practice in our lives with the people and situations around us.

We should not berate ourselves for that – human life on this planet is a most complicated and challenging journey, it is a university of life where even getting a standard 2:2 is not easy!  But what we can do, with kindness towards ourselves, is to focus on and learn how we can increase our Love vibrations.  This is effort well worth spent, it’s how we take care of our Soul.

So let’s get to the 7 powerful ways to be in peace in the eye of the storm.

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7 Ways to Stay in Peace

1. Will Power / Conscious Remembering

Will power or conscious remembering are something we can harness daily and often.  We can use pure brain power to simply remember to remain conscious.  The more we remember the more it becomes a natural thing.

The secret of great sages past and present is that they were / are super aware of their ‘inner landscape” from moment to moment.  There is no projecting out unresolved stuff onto others because they don’t define themselves by what they find within – thoughts and emotions.  They don’t make these things mean something about themselves because they know they are not those things in essence.  They just watch and accept.

Note that the mental effort to consciously remember to remain aware is not the same as the mind’s constant thinking – which is the general state of play with the human mind.  We are aiming to still the mind, not get it working even more with its constant back and forth conversations and thinking.

You may notice that when you are focused on the external world primarily, with constant thoughts occurring of their own accord, the movement of energy is up through to the head/brain, and this is a heavier energy momentum, this can result in headaches, feeling drained, tired but can’t sleep, etc.  If you are sensitive, you can feel this as a pressure in the head area.

So what I mean by using the brain to remember is simply that – just to remember to be conscious, not to get lost in a mire of thoughts.

This also trains the mind to become focused on the now, and reduces the mind chatter itself.

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2.  Self-enquiry

In a similar way to conscious remembering, there is a non-dualistic self-enquiry practice that comes from Ramana Maharshi, which is to ask yourself ‘Who am I?’ throughout the day.

Again, this grounds us into the present and reduces the mind chatter as well.

It can also precipitate (deeper) spiritual awakening, in fact this is it’s real purpose.

What happens when you make a serious quest for the Self is that the “I”-thought as a thought disappears; something else from the depths takes hold of you and that is not the “I” which commenced the quest. That is the real Self, the import of I. It is not the ego nor the mind. It is the Supreme Being Itself. – Ramana Maharshi

The point of self-enquiry is to first of all see your ego at play, and through this seeing, a distance grows between who you really are (which is that which is not ego) and the ego.

By ego what I mean is all these things (not just the show-offy ego that is often understood as ego): personality, character, egoic mind, identity, self-image, projected self, conditioned thinking, beliefs, attachments, fear, lower emotions, facade self, lower self….The list could go on and on.

Anything that we can label about ourselves is ego, except for Love, compassion, kindness….because that which we are in reality is not something that can be labelled.   Even love with a small ‘l’ can be ego – when it is of the attached variety.  Indeed, the ego is extremely subtle and clever – it can make you think you’re being highly compassionate, when in reality you’re being compassionate for a motive.  And where there is a motive there is ego.

Reality is simply the loss of ego. Destroy the ego by seeking its identity. Because the ego is no entity it will automatically vanish and reality will shine forth by itself. – Ramana Maharshi

I’d like to suggest regarding the above quote that what Ramana Maharshi meant when saying ‘destroy the ego’ is really destroy the attachment to ego, since without a functional ego we could not operate as human beings – for example, we need our ego to stop us from crossing the road when a car is coming.

So, for this method of raising vibrations, we are getting to the root of who we actually are in essence, through our own individual, direct experience.

Removing attachment to ego is a massive uplift in our energies, and a huge relief also, once we get past the shock that this brings.  When this happens in our experience, this truly is our ‘new normal’!

Shamans and other schools of thought call the dissolution of the ego ‘death in life.’  It is better to have this occur during life than when it usually happens which is at death, because we get to do further work whilst in a human body/mind after that point, and we also have the opportunity to assimilate the shock of operating through a human life in this new way.

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3. Meditation

Meditation has become more and more accepted in the mainstream, with school children meditating and becoming less hyperactive, prison inmates undertaking it with many benefits, and many other experiments carried out that prove the positive effects of meditation on the mind and body.

As for how to meditate, there are many different ways – 3rd eye, mantra chanting, guided, focussed, breathing, visualisation, others.  I won’t go into each, nor am I an expert on each.  My preferred way is 3rd eye, but it can vary.

I go in spurts with meditation, doing it for a while then weeks where I won’t.  In the end I try to be in a meditative state whilst going through the day, regardless of whether I sit down to meditate or not.

Meditating on powerful celestial days – eclipses, solstices, astrological events – can be a deeper experience due to powerful energies in the ethers, so I try to sit down on those dates whenever I can.  Also if I am particularly challenged emotionally or mentally I will do more meditation.

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4. Soul Plan Reading

A Soul Plan Reading is a healing tool, as well as life purpose guidance.  It reveals your pre-birth agreement and goes deep into aspects of your life that I have not seen available elsewhere in quite the same empowering way, and with such accuracy.

It works from the sound vibration of your birth name so no date of birth is needed.  Sound is of a primordial level, it is very powerful.  In the Bible it states ‘In the beginning was the word and the word was made into flesh’……so sound comes first, then the manifestation.  This is how your soul plan works too – your name attracts to you certain experiences and by decoding this sound much gets revealed about you!

I have found the soul plan system to be highly transformational and clarifying for my clients, and this is often confirmed by clients too.  Here are some testimonials I have been kindly sent.

A Soul Plan reading is like the blueprint of your soul – a map to living in peace with yourself and mastering what you came here for.  Having your Soul Plan analysed can be an empowering turning point, as your life’s themes, challenges, patterns and energetic dynamics become clear.  Your Soul Plan goes straight to the core of your soul’s purpose, as well as revealing your inherent gifts, innate abilities and life’s goals.  It can help you to accept the karma  / challenges you chose before birth for this incarnation, thereby helping you to accept yourself.  All of this serves to weaken stuck patterns and thus raise vibrations.

More information about what soul plan reading is here: Soul Plan Reading.  If you have any questions about soul plan feel free to send me a message via the contact page.  I offer concessions if you have little income at this time.

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5. Mantra Chanting / Recitation

Mantras can be recited to yourself (silently or aloud) at any time you can.  If you memorize the mantra you can then repeat it whenever you wish – when you are walking along the street or when you have some waiting time, for example.   You could check the pronunciation of the mantra online, as it’s best to repeat it as accurately as you can.

Some people insist that you should recite mantras in certain ways and for a set number of times.  You can certainly follow such guidance or be more flexible as you feel drawn, the key is heart intention.  Ideally one would be sitting up straight when reciting the mantras but I am sure efforts are still heard by the universe if standing up or lying down 🙂

Reciting mantras is said to bestow many benefits.  It raises our vibrations through our focus being on the Divine or higher matters.  Stuart Wilde, the great modern visionary, said about sacred invocations in his book Grace, Gaia and the End of Days (which incidentally is a book not for the feint of heart and it is not like any other book you will find, it contains sophisticated metaphysical information that can help you to release yourself from the invisible chains around us, it really is a battle to keep our soul intact and pure):

“If you remember any sacred invocations or beautiful prose, those words and their sentiments stay with you even after death, and they protect you in the afterlife.”

So mantra chanting is not to be underestimated in its power to protect us, as there are many unseen negative forces around most of us.

Here are three mantras to chant or recite.

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Om Chanting – ॐ

Om, or Aum, is a sacred sound.  Sound is very powerful and is part of the creative force of the universe.  It is said that before the universes manifested, there was a void, and out of this void came the sound ‘Om’, and then the universes were created.  Some say Om was the first sound that came from God – perhaps the ‘in the beginning was the word’ mentioned above.

Chanting Om is said to bestow upon you the highest knowledge, bliss, and realization.  Here is a blog post with more about the chanting Om.

Om is one of the easiest and most powerful mantras to chant.  Not much memorization needed!

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Gayatri Mantra

The Gayatri mantra is a universal prayer for enlightenment, that comes from the Vedas in Hinduism.  It has three parts: adoring the Divine, meditating on the Divine, then praying to the Divine.  It is said to enlighten us through illuminating the intellect.

Om Bhur Bhuvah Svaha
Tat Savitur Varenyam
Bhargo Devasya Dheemahi
Dhiyo Yo nah Prachodayat
~ The Rig Veda (10:16:3)

Meaning of the words:

Om: The primeval sound
Bhur: the physical body/physical realm
Bhuvah: the life force/the mental realm
Svaha: the soul/spiritual realm
Tat:  That (God)
Savitur: the Sun, Creator (source of all life)
Varenyam: adore
Bhargo: effulgence (divine light)
Devasya: supreme Lord
Dheemahi: meditate
Dhiyo: the intellect
Yo: May this light
Nah: our
Prachodayat: illumine/inspire

 

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7. Bhakti

I have saved my favourite way to raise vibrations to the last 🙂

Bhakti Yoga, which is the spiritual path of loving devotion to the Divine, is a most powerful way, in my experience, of experiencing Divine ecstasy and raising our frequency.

Time and time again I have been in the depths of sadness or a negative space, and the adversity itself pulls me into bhakti, turning my lower vibrations into ecstatic communion with the Divine.  It is one of the fastest ways to let go and get lifted up into higher states.

When listening and partaking in such devotional songs the soul really stirs, and a deep thirst becomes quenched for those moments.  I believe such devotion is the greatest thing we can offer God.  Bhakti is too beautiful for words.  Tears flow of their own accord.  It’s deep.

Through music, one can reach God. – Ravi Shankar

So here are four devotional songs.  They are from various religions because the Divine spans all religions and favours none.

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Om Jai Jagdish – Aarti /Puja

Om Jai Jagdish is the equivalent of the Christian Lord’s Prayer for Hindus.  It is an aarti or puja which is a ritual to worship deities by offering light, usually with a candle.  The version below is with the beautiful voice of Lata Mangeshkar, India’s most famous singer.  You don’t need to be a Hindu to enjoy bhakti with this aarti.

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Om Namah Shivay – Krishna Das

This is an amazing kirtan (mantra song).  If you want to get up and dance during your bhakti then this is the song to do it with as it gets faster and faster – just divine!

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How Great Thou Art – A Version with Drums

A Christian song, this may be too religious for some, but that’s ok…God is One, and has many names.  And She is truly Great.

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Devi Prayer

This song-prayer is so beautiful, it brings many to tears.  Devi prayer is a prayer to Divine Mother.

We can all have a relationship with Mother Divine or Goddess.  She is the creator aspect of God, She birthed us all.  She is our real Mother.  She Graces us, and all equally.  If we call to Her She is there immediately.  She can be felt as subtle movement of energy in the body – that’s how I experience Her.  Some even channel her.  She is there for all.

I think in the west particularly it may seem rather religious to speak of Gods and Goddesses in this way, but the truth is we came from Somewhere or Something or Someone.  This whole intricate, amazing manifestation did not just pop up randomly and work as it does.  This post is not at all religious, it is just a post about Truth.  And the truth is that Mother Divine wants us to acknowledge Her.  Moreover we are living at a point in human history when now more than ever Mother is available to us.  She is the most Wondrous. I cannot prove Her existence to anyone, all I know is how I feel when I just even think of her sincerely.  May the Divine help us and all humanity at this time.

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I hope that this post has provided some inspiration for you, long as it turned out!

With Love and Light