Connect to what is of value

Connecting to what is of true value is always in reach.  You may ask how to do this.  When you are open, teachers enter your scope to guide you to recognize the obstacle is the Path. Ultimately, its up to you to take steps to let go of what prevents you from feeling what it is to be valuable. Ponder these 5 tips to orient your focal point of attention:

1.  Expand consciousness

Each person is on a unique journey to grow more consciously present to that which is of value.  The ego has its own ideas of external examples of value.  Expanding consciousness is about shifting to focus on what value feels like to the soul. This may be very different from what the ego has you believe is valuable.

2. Know everything is part of a system of value exchange

Whether it be money, time, the tangible or intangible,  all things are part of a system of give and take.  When you are capable of polar thinking, you come to see polar opposites go together. You cannot give without taking, cannot take without giving. Reality is energetically balanced, even if your filters do not register this. It is conscious echange that makes all the difference.  Figure and background go together. They are not mutually-exclusive.   All events have a witness. If you truly wish to see the value of exchange, when a person asks you a question about the sacred, answer in secular terms. If you are asked of the eternal, answer in terms of the temporal.  When asked about the abstract, answer in concrete terms. Knowing this allows you to move forward consciously, accepting innate value and creating value in all you do.

3.  Be at peace with yourself

Being at peace with yourself is about recognizing and detaching from attachments and aversions to money and all perceived forms of value, wealth, prosperity and exchange.  Regaining a conscious connection to yourself results in massive breakthroughs, moving into your desinty with greater purpose, conscious intent, and feeling into what this process is really about.  

4.  Be the Worldbridger

You are the bridge between the material and non-material worlds.  You must give yourself the gift of conscious presence before listening to and hearing true Self, tuning in to what is actually of value to the Soul.

5. Meditate

Truth is a state of meditation consciousness.  Trust arises in awareness as one  takes the role of observer and views how you simultaneously participate in human life.  It hits that mediation is the avenue though which you access deeper intuition, grow aware of how to transcend apparent obstacles, activate, materialize and realize rather than what Gurdjieff calls, In Search of Being. Isira Sananda reminds us we are each our own Awakening Place.  She echoes, "Why worry about what you should be when you can simply be what you are."

Interview with Carlos Castenada

Over the years, I have interacted with shamans through the post, in-person and in other ways. Each one is a wake-up call. Shamanic training awakens forgotten wisdom within.  Soul journeying and Soul retrieval shift perception and far more. 

Not all shamans reveal true names. They echo we are each a vessel through which energy flows, encourage us to grow aware of how we use perception to lie to ourselves and can all consciously shift our focal point. 

We are each invited to connect with the shaman within, to listen more closely to the heart and let the Soul guide us.  This is about tuning into Nature sounds, the melodies trees sing, the music of mountains, water and Earth. We often forget how to listen to Nature which echoes we forget how to listen to ourselves.  All we are taught shifts our focus away from what we know we are. So, how do we get back there? How is this done?

What you think is lost is never far away. Nikola Tesla echos,'If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.' Shamanic teaching happens in varied ways; drumming, ingesting plant substances and other ways sharede between teacher and student.  A spirit teacher enters you life to teach you. You know they are effective when you feel discomfort and gain insight into your blind spots. Spirit teachers are particularly good at reminding you that you know nothing (when you thought you knew everything). Such teachers are also very supportive (in their own way), compassionate (even if it hurts), and very wise. Thye may surprise you with what they know about you.  They highlight lessons you need because they exist to guide your growth into your shamanic potential. 

Carlos Castenada, is known as a shaman as well as other labels yet, widely remains a mystery. He earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology and wrote best-selling books about his shamanic journeys with Don Juan Matus.  As you read or listen to his work, such as The Active Side of Infinity, gain insight into other Toltec practices, you are invited to know or reject the material's authenticity.

According to Casteneda, growing aware of our life force guides us to see we separate life threads or stories.  Each thread is a discrete element, an experience that stretches back in time. We each have ability to recognize and integrate threads of life force back into our being.

What grows evident to the initiate is the shaman's spirit can leave the body to enter the supernatural world to search for answers. The lower world, middle world and higher world are some worlds open to journeying. At our own pace, we each find what we need. Imagining  Dragons reminds us we are a Believer of the world we live in or stop and see beyond it. Come what may, we are all Walking the Wire of Love. Even as we look down from above at versions of ourselves, we still take what comes. How we respond is unique to our chosen path. 

Listen to this Castenada interview with Theodore Roszak and leave comments below.

Carlos Castenada Interview with Theodore Roszak (1969)

 If you could ask Carlos a question, what would you ask? Can you anticipate the answer?

 "The soul is not in the body, but the body in the soul.” — Alan Watts

"Come out of the masses. Stand Alone. Live Like a Lion and Live Your own Life According to your own Light." -Osho.

The Value of Down-time

It is common to respond to being overwhelmed  by work or tasks in three ways;

1) to force yourself to focus more intently on tasks at hand without breaks,

2) to work more hours in a week, month or year

3) to avoid the efficiency trap and instead, work smarter

This said, you may ask, what does work smarter mean? It is not about doing more in less time. Rather, it is about paying more attention to what is going on within you during down-time (when you are not consciously task-oriented).  This is about recalling what it feels like to tune into and be aware of what is going on within you, body-mind-spirit. (That's right, all of you, not only mental chatter.)

Thus, you no longer schedule critical tasks when you are mentally drained and you are more informed to let go of what is no longer necessary.  Take a moment to reflect what it feels like to maximize effectiveness.  Grow conscious of distractions and eliminate them. Reflect on your inspirational mentors today. Who is inspiring you to review how you perceive and use time? 

8 ways time teaches you about you

Your relationship to time says a lot about your relationship with yourself. You can learn a lot about your personality, state of mind and level of consciousness based on how you view and relate to time.  If you are asked what time is, notice which (or how many) of the following feel right or compatible with how you view the world:

1.  Time is a means of enslavement

Notice whether you use time unconsciously, as when your attitude resents deadlines or calendar events.  Observe how you feel, whether your muscles contract or get anxious about constraints.  This view evokes feelings of stress, limitation, resistance, discomfort, and punctuality issues. Being late is like sending the message, "I don't care", "It doesn't matter" or "F*ck you." Identify specific emotion(s) driving you along and follow them to the Source.

2. Time is a device of convenience

Notice whether you use time consciously as a tool to rendez-vous with people in specific places, longitudes, latitudes or when the Sun is at a certain point in the sky.  Meet a friend for a hot drink or a lover for dinner. How else in the physical, linear world can you be sure to be in the same point at the same time? This view sees time as a device, like an invisible thread to bring people together in the same perceived conditions.  

3. Time is a luxury

Notice whether time is something you feel you lack, do not have or choose to deny yourself.  Pinpoint whether its something you think you must earn or bend over backwards to get, strain or struggle to obtain. This view sees time as like a carrot at the end of a fishing line you always seem to be chasing. Yet, what is luxury? It is increasingly defined by how people view and  spend time. In a busy and intrusive world, people increasingly value time for enjoying intimate moments and extraordinary or unique experiences.

4. Time is therapy

Notice how much time you give yourself reveals how much love, joy self-care you give yourself.  In another way, what you are aware of in time is all that exists for you and offers a lesson in the psychotherapy of appreciation.  The more you observe and appreciate yourself, the more your senseory perception expand s and the more of your surroundings opens itself up to you.  If you are not in the forest when a tree is cut, you do not hear it fall.  If you are unaware of your needs, you cannot satisfy them in-time.

5. Time is a pointer to the totality

Being here involves intention to know life in all dimensions. Let us say we turn down voltage to lights. You cannot see verything clearly in your midst. Imagine that your mind-body is operating at a limited voltage until you discover you hold back and then turn up the life voltage within you.  Awakening and Mastering Time to time turns up your voltage which enables you to handle whatever happens.  Inside you are fully charged.  Life within you is like an explosion.  Exercising control on the outside can lead you to constraint the energy flow on the inside. As you allow energy to flow freely inside, surrender to yourself, and properly control the outside.  The body, mind can then be used to the full extent.  Things you never thought you were capable of you begin doing simply because you begin to see yourself as a battery with voltage fully charged.

6. Time is a portal

In Science fiction books and films, time portals are often used to take a group of people or a single person back in time. Popular time travel destinations often involve traveling back to the era of the dinosaurs. In some films time portals can also be set as a hazard, for instance, they can begin to go haywire which makes them accidentally transport you where you do not wish to go. Back to the future or back to the past is a choice you can easily change with awareness.

7. Time is the key to endless possibilities

From the moment you see time as branching timelines and dimensions, excitement grows as you create pitstops as you hitchhike through universes.  You shift gears, travel differently, discover astral and lucid dreaming, the insights to travel through the chakras and other systems.

8. Time is an imaginary concept 

Notice time is an imaginary concept that exists in the mind.  You give it life and meaning by focusing attention on it. Time play with in movies and books. We need not travel by Flu powder like Harry Potter and friends who call out the name os a place, disparate and apparate  To be mindful of your past, is to be open to lessons. Yet, do not focus here, or it will trap you.  To be mindful of your future, is to know your vision of future shapes your future. But do not linger too long, or it will distract you.  Choosing to stay present is to marvel at simple wonders of this moment and be infinitely grateful all-the-time.

Live as if nobody can teach you

Reasons exist for everything we perceive and invite into our lives. Most people are inspired by others.  We all imagine and create people we admire for qualities and experiences we relate to or aspire to have ourselves. 

Yet, inspriational mentors we connect with and admire also silently invite us to grow more conscious of our own true qualities so we can bring these to light. Ponder these ten points that encourage seeing yourself more often as your own guru or inspirational mentor:

1. Stand on your own

Even for a moment or a day, let go of ideas, all that you are taught. Unspoiled wisdom exists within you. This involves trusting yourself more, living more in love than fear. Trust is not about techniques, strategies or tools, but about getting to the root of your character.  The more you interact with empowering people, the more you empower and listen to yourself, the more you are accepting yourself.  What is your inner voice sharing? How does this en-lighten or en-liven you?

2. See into the nature of pleasantness

The only way to be genuinely pleasant all the time is if everything around you is always seen to be pleasant.  This is unrealistic. To be happy all the time is to deny the full gamut of emotions and lessons available. Every ah-ha moment is drawing you deeper into yourself, to see the origin of your beliefs, projections and reflections. Which core beliefs are you discovering and healing?

3.  Notice assumptions and beliefs cloud perception

As you grow more skeptical about everything and everybody, about social systems, policitial structures, religious beliefs, scientific theories, and popular beliefs about other planets, you discover no ideas enable you to get intimate with real life.  Getting real involves the willingness to question familliar foundations and bravely remove the carpet you imagine that you stand on.

4. Observe the inner skeptic 

Life unfolding around you is never going to be 100% what you think you want.  Ask yourself who thinks it should be? See the inner skeptic as the teacher it is. At any given second, a geosynchronous satellite is emitting a T1 ( a terabyte) of information.  The human brain compresses 3-4 terabytes of information for memory storage. Imagine the interaction between the human brain and geosynchronous satellites and what we are downloading unless we grow conscious and take personal responsibility.  We have the capacity to transcend all that which gives the illusion we are separate from true self.  

5. Delve into the secrets of time

How else could you learn but through the invention of time or imagined gaps between here and there? Earth is not about instantaneous manifestation though many people tell themselves this is what they want or work toward.   Recall your intention in being here. Be aware of conditioned impatience or the urge to want things or results faster. What is time teaching you about yourself, downloads and your human experience?

6. Mistakes are necessary

If you are protected from committing mistakes, you can never learn anything.  Being aware is noticing the difference between mystics and mistakes; mystics see everything the way it is, people who see mistakes judge how things should be.   Watch what happens as you grow more solutions-oriented and then begin to identify the source of perceived problems and solutions is the same.

7. See through illusion of directions

What you assume is up or down, side-to-side or in other directions, is arbitrary. Reflecting on the planet as a spinning sphere, if you are looking upward, you cannot ever be sure which direction you are looking in. The only direction you can be certain of is what is outward and what is inward.  As you explore the outer world, your inner world grows sharper.  Imagine yourself as a pilot in a plane in a wild spin with no sense of up or down. What do you do? How do you ground yourself without traditional points of reference?

8.Conscious choice followed by conscious action

One view of the ideal path is to live with awareness of what is going on energetically within and without.  The more conscious you are of what you dream, the more  conscious action you take to pave the way for what is unfolding as new realities. You take conscious action to draw out more of your forgotten or hidden self.  Notice what is arising within. Trust arises in consciously observing truth and grows as you embrace vulnerability. What truly matters?

9. Stop lying to yourself

Pain and pleasure happen within you. Have you ever experienced anything outside yourself? Who determines what happens within you? Notice what happens as you determine how your experience of life is on this planet is 100% determined by you. You cannot lie to yourself and make any more excuses as the truth reaches conscious awareness. You respond to everything as a way to wake up to the big picture.  Everyone and everything is helping you help yourself. Who or what stands out as helping you most right now?

10. Unleash your inner radiance

What feels like moments for me seems to be hours for others.  Time stops as I discover everything I believed was me is not me. What is here is there, what is there is here, past and future get mixed up until distinctions disappear.  As the fog clears, when two eyes are open, the world of time exists and when these eyes are closed, another reality presents itself though another eye. Watch what happens as Mastering Time becomes a conscious choice.