What we call the "Self" is not a separate object
with an independent destiny and life, but more a process that
continues until "Nirvana".
Buddha
Editorial
,
A Happy New Year to you! May all the good things you wish for be
manifested to you and to those you wish to benefit and bless.
I have two new articles for you in this issue. If you focus upon
what they are saying, I think it will truly help you to make
substantial progress in your spiritual path and your life in
general. I hope they benefit you greatly.
I hope you enjoy this issue and, as ever, welcome
your feedback on the discussion forum.
Regards,
Asoka Selvarajah
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There is ample evidence that the universe responds directly to
thought. Thoughts are real, and they directly create the reality
you choose to live in. In short...
What you focus upon expands.
That would be an excellent phrase for you to meditate upon in the
silence of your room, throughout the day, and in the midst of
every reaction you experience to every situation. Make it your
mantra for the next few days, weeks, or even months. Let the
truth of it become your own in the very depths of your being.
What you focus upon expands.
So, what do YOU focus upon? Money problems? A bad relationship?
Fear? Terrorism? Or... Love? Abundance? Inner growth? Compassion?
Remember, whatever you focus upon expands. If you concentrate
your mind on the negative, you will get more of it. Some people
are stuck in the mistakes and regrets of the past. Guilt and
regret hold them down. As a result, they are trapped by the past
and become incapable of facing the future with a fresh attitude.
They bring past mistakes into the present and then into the
future.
And what you focus upon expands.
If only Governments could realize this essential law of creation.
Sadly, they do not. Do you want to focus upon terrorism and
anti-terrorism? Well, what you focus upon EXPANDS! Perhaps you
have noticed that recently?...
The same is true of the excessive mass of legislation that
burdens modern society in every conceivable area of life. It is
based on mistrust, fear and the assumption of dishonesty. Of
course, what you focus upon expands. Hence, the more emphasis you
place upon these negative qualities of human nature, the more you
encourage it to flourish. What might happen if instead, we could
gradually transform society from being fear-based to love-based?
What might happen if we placed more funds and education upon
creating a truly loving and supportive society?
Do leaders negotiate for peace, but their hearts are filled with
fear, legalism, enmity and accusation? What might happen if they
could approach negotiations with a spirit of reconciliation,
respect, love and determination for peace? What if the use of
violence, bloodshed and war were REALLY considered totally
unacceptable, and not a tool to negotiate with?
What you focus upon expands!
In your own life, watch your thoughts and actions, because this
law applies to you. If you have money problems and you focus on
the PROBLEM instead of the SOLUTION, you are assured of more
money difficulties. If you engage in anger and criticism of
others on a continual basis, this too will grow. If you create a
defensive negative attitude to all the BS going on in the
workplace, but do nothing constructive to counter it, then the BS
can only grow.
If instead you focus heavily on love, peace and compassion, then
these will grow in your life. If you are a solution-oriented
positive personality at your job, then people will respond to you
in like manner, giving you more respect and even expanding your
role and opportunity. Try it, starting today!
Have a mind focused upon constriction and a contracting spiral of
life, and that is what will perpetuate. Focus instead upon
expansion and growth, and that is what you will attract into your
life.
What you focus upon expands.
The same is true of what you aspire for. If you spend ALL of your
time in daily drudgery, forever dreaming of some idealized future
but doing nothing to achieve it, then it will remain forever a
dream and you will remain forever mired in daily distraction. The
latter will grow and the dream will recede. However, if you
budget a regular time to pursue your dream, no matter how small
that time allotment might be, and commit to following through on
that regular session, then you will do more than develop mere
expertise. You will harness this universal law, and cause what
you focus upon to gradually expand. Then you will find yourself
doing more of it, and that will cause even further expansion.
What you focus upon expands.
So what DO you focus upon? What IS expanding in your life right
now? Why not stop right now and ponder this question deeply?
REALLY deeply. You might even want to write down a list, or make
some notes in your journal. You cannot change what you are not
conscious of. So work to become conscious of what you are
focusing upon right away.
Why not take this as a mantra? Ponder this thought continually
and apply it to your life at every opportunity and in every area?
If you do, not only will you begin to become conscious of hidden
patterns of repetitive thought, but you will also become aware of
exactly what you are attracting into your life on a habitual
basis.
As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for because it might
come true! So remember ....
WHAT YOU FOCUS UPON EXPANDS!
Copyright Asoka Selvarajah 2004. All Rights Reserved.
Asoka Selvarajah is a writer on personal growth and
spirituality,
and the author of "The 7 Golden Secrets To Knowing Your
Higher
Self". His work helps people achieve their full
potential, deepen their
understanding of mystical truth,
and discover their soul's purpose. Learn more about his work
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In the process of awakening to higher consciousness, things start
to break into our world from the "outside"...
Strange happenings that seem out of the ordinary. Strokes of good
fortune. Bizarre coincidences. Symbolic messages. The further you
progress on the spiritual path, the ever more common these
become.
If you ever have the opportunity to watch a film called "The
Truman Show", starring Jim Carrey, you should do so. It provides
a fascinating metaphor of the process of spiritual awakening.
The hero, Truman Burbank is the unwitting star of a cynical 24
hour "real TV" show that has been following his every movement
since his very birth. His entire world is a dome-enclosed island,
complete with fake sun and moon. Every major incident in his life
has been carefully stage managed by a cynical TV producer for
maximum worldwide viewing figures of "The Truman Show". Truman
himself is blissfully unaware that his entire world is a
fabricated fake. He has never left the small island he was born
on, but always dreams of running away to a tropical paradise on
the other side of the world.
Every now and then, something breaks in from the outside and
tries to alert him to the delusion he is living. It all builds up
to a crisis point where Truman finally begins to question his
"reality", and finally challenge it, and seek to break out of it.
Our lives are a bit like that. We also live a false reality; a
construction of our own senses that seems so real, but actually
breaks down completely under examination. Many of us strenuously
avoid the subtle messages that are always trying to come through
from the greater reality beyond. Maybe we prefer the safety of
the comfortable world we have created. Maybe we don't even
believe any other world could even exist.
Deepak Chopra describes Synchronicity - the appearance of
meaningful coincidences in your life - as a sure sign of
spiritual progress. It would seem that the further along the
spiritual path you travel, the more often you experience such
remarkable meaningful "coincidences". However, you can also use
the same principle to manifest what you desire, from the formless
substance of the universe, through the power of thought alone. As
the universe imposes its thought upon you, likewise you can
impose your thought upon the universe.
Awareness is the key to spiritual awakening and unfoldment.
Remain awake to the strange phenomenon breaking in from the
"outside" in your life, both in your physical realm as well as in
the realms of thought and intuition. Actually, there is no
"outside". You are bigger than the world you see or have created
for yourself through your ego delusions. You are actually in
contact with that infinite world at all times, although you may
be totally unaware of it.
The key secret lies in "waking up" from the dream of everyday
life and earnestly seeking the truth with all your energy. A key
point in the Truman Show came when the cynical TV producer
admitted that if Truman really wanted to, i.e. if he exerted
every effort to break out of his fake world, then there was
nothing that anybody could do to stop him.
It's that way with us too. The reason we don't break free to
enlightened consciousness is because we like conventional
consciousness well enough. It's just too much effort to try
anything else. After all, there are the bills to pay, aren't
there? And what would the neighbors say? And besides, where are
you going to find the time for all that extra spiritual stuff?
And so on...
In the film, Truman is terrified of the waters that surround his
island. Years back, the TV company staged his father's "death" by
drowning when Truman was still a little boy. This served the
ultimate purpose of keeping him on the island forever. Moreover,
whenever Truman starts to make any serious efforts to leave,
strange "coincidences" (created by the TV producer)conspire to
prevent him. It's as though he is simply not fated to ever leave.
Well, our own ego does the same with us. It fears its own death,
and cons us into believing that its death is also our own. It
sets up belief barriers that we dare not pass at any cost. We
stay in our comfort zone - our own little island of safety- in
every area of our life, no matter how uncomfortable that "comfort
zone" may actually be. Examples abound. Money. Security.
Marriage. Following convention. Why take any risks in life? Why
rock the boat?
Some people give up everything to follow the spiritual path with
their entire lives. Others put in about 15 minutes of meditation
a day, read the odd self-help book now and again, and consider
themselves "already enlightened" in the midst of their
conventional consciousness. Oh well!....
In the end, Truman has to face, and overcome, his long-standing
terror of water. He escapes from the island in a boat. The TV
producer throws a massive storm at him. Then a terrifying tidal
wave capsizes the boat and virtually drowns Truman. But not
quite... He survives to find the exit to the dome enclosing his
world. Despite last minute attempts from the illusion-maker to
scare him into staying, he steps through into the unknown,
leaving beyond the world of comfortable illusion he had known all
his life long.
Again, we see close parallels to spiritual awakening; commonly
called Enlightenment. Spiritual traditions also talk about the
need for death of the old to make way for the birth of the new.
The symbol of water baptism (which, interestingly, is used in the
film) is the Christian image of this; submergence into the deep,
dark waters of unconsciousness and reemergence into new life.
Very frequently, the deepest spiritual moments - the point at
which we come closest to touching our true divine essence - ARE
those of profound difficulty and challenge in your life. That is
another reason why the ego consciousness is terrified of such
"negative" events, and wants to keep you far from them. It knows
that at those critical points, you come very close to God and
hence to liberation. That is definitely NOT want the ego nature
wants, as this would spell its own demise, and so it acts to keep
you forever slumbering in the world of the comfortable and the
known.
Mystics talk of "the dark night of the soul"; that period of
deepest darkness and inner searching prior to the dawn of the
light of spiritual liberation. It is the point at which we have
to confront our deepest fears and inbuilt prejudices, and
overcome them (even as Truman did) in order to step into a new
reality.
OK. You may not be living your existence out in an artificial
dome in front of billions of TV viewers. Yet, in a very real
sense, your life is very similar. Instead of a cynical TV
producer, you have the ego consciousness - that artificial
creation of yours that helps you deal with the physical world,
but is not the real YOU at all. The reality you take to be so
real keeps being "invaded" by strange meaningful coincidences
from the outside; increasingly so, as you begin to wake up. You
may sympathize deeply with the cynical exploitation of Truman in
the film. Yet, you should also spare a thought for the way a part
of your inner psyche mercilessly deceives you, exploits your
worst fears, and keeps you drugged; forever wasting your divine
potential on trivialities that count for nothing in the long run.
You too, if you are to ever wake up from this self-imposed
fantasy world, must also get serious. You too must be relentless
and face your worst fears. Be determined to find a way out.
That's what the ego, like the TV producer in the Truman Show
fears the most. Because, if you were every to get REALLY
determined, and give it your all to the very point of no return
and beyond, there is nothing anybody or anything could do to stop
you from succeeding.
And that's not fiction. That's fact!
Copyright 2004. Asoka Selvarajah. All Rights Reserved.
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