I recently read that when Marlon Brando was asked why he didn’t memorize his lines, he replied, “Real people don’t know what they want to say.” I relate to this because when I teach or give a presentation, it flows much better and more authentically when I don’t prepare beforehand. I can reflect on what I might like to do and have a few triggers or props handy, but the REAL stuff emerges when I get out the way completely and just let what wants to come through flow unimpeded. Amazingly, I end up learning a hell of a lot as well…it’s as if I tap into an infinite, universal well of knowledge and I become a conduit for a greater source of knowledge than I would have if I’d spent time efforting at it through research, creating outlines, and writing copious notes.

After 18 years of teaching, I only discovered this recently when I began to teach teenagers. Knowing I needed to make my classes more dynamic and exciting to capture and sustain their attention, I accidentally stumbled upon a core truth at the heart of all creativity: THE LESS I TRIED to teach them or inspire them, the more I actually did and THE MORE I TRIED, the more I failed. The REAL juicy passionate fun stuff happens through you when YOU get out of the way. As soon as you put the “I” into the equation and you try and manipulate or control the outcome, your efforts flatline and the passion gets sucked dry.

My presumption that we are not the doer was confirmed by a recent conversation I had with an engineer. The engineer explained that the perception of ourselves as the doer and the originator of an idea was actually caused by a split second delay in the left side of our brain, the part that perceives the “I”. He agreed that when the “I” tries to do anything, it messes things up.

I shared this conversation in an email to my brother in-law, an artist, and he responded by describing his experience when he paints, “When I go into a painting, you might say that I intend to be spontaneous once that the brush has its first dip into the paint. When the painting is going well (here I begin to sound like Jackson Pollack) “I” have no idea of how it will go or come out. The more I try to intervene, the worse the result in the long run and “I” recognize it as a failure or simply as a bad result (since I’m an old hand at this). But then, I always hear the voice of Carl Sublett, one of my favorite professors, who said. “We never LOSE a painting,” which means that your spontaneity can have freedom after you re-evaluate the painting and align yourself again with your original intention. You “repaint” the painting. In other words, it seems like intention is a program of the ego and spontaneity is when one releases oneself to that “cosmic intelligence” or “great spirit”. When the two are one, then you’re on a roll.”

Releasing oneself to that cosmic intelligence or getting out of the way creates the space for magic to happen. Life becomes more of a dance that way with us as both the participant and the observer.

If you really knew that the part of you that you refer to as the “I” was really a perceptual trick and actually wasn’t deciding or controlling anything, imagine the freedom that would come from that! Imagine truly knowing that you could trust what is happening as it’s happening rather than feeling the need to control it or change it! You would be free to just experience it, to be in it without an agenda.

This of course, would not mean you would become completely passive or catatonic. Instead, you would simply shift from directing things to following where you were directed to go. The cool thing is that there is no one exactly like you, so what comes through you is a specific set of experiences that can only manifest through your particular form with all of its unique characteristics.

Ultimately, what this all means is that you would remember that you are not the “I”, but the life force and awareness behind the “I”. The “I” is merely there as a tool to use to gain experience. Where we get tripped up is thinking it’s who we are.

I used to think these peak experiences, spontaneity and the feeling of being in the flow was something random that just happened here and there. Now I see that this as the natural state of our being, and the best indication that we have finally gotten out of our own way.

Something’s gotta give. The planet is strained to the breaking point in its ability to sustain our burgeoning human population with our ever growing waste and toxic lifestyles.

We need help. But short of an evolved extraterrestrial species arriving at the eleventh hour to bail us out of our stupidity and ignorance, we’re on our own.

To some people, plain and simple, that would mean we’re doomed. However, I would like to suggest that left to our own devices, we actually DO have the capacity to transform our current situation. The problem is that we’ve forgotten how. We’ve forgotten that in addition to being human, we also have within us something quite extraordinary, something mostly unseen and unnoticed, but something not at all limited by the boundaries of time and space.

This transcendent aspect of us is the energy or intelligence within us that created us and gives us life. Don’t you find it strange, how little attention we give to this core essence of our existence? Instead, few of us acknowledge that this even exists or that we have any access to it or would know what to do with it even if we could access it.

It’s as if life is a puzzle and we’re born into it with a bit of amnesia and confusion and only a handful of clues about our existence. As our life unfolds, we have many opportunities to remember and become clear and even to work the puzzle. Our tendency is to look outside of ourselves for answers. There are so many sources of information and teachers out there who promise to answer our questions. All ultimately lead us astray, except those who redirect our query back to their source: ourselves.

It is only then that we can begin to discover for ourselves not only the answers to our questions, but the source of the questions themselves. We begin at the end and end at the beginning. All our fruitless searches return us to where we started, with the greatest discovery of all being that there is nowhere to go and what we seek we already have.

With that said, how will that discovery save us? It will not only save us but it will relieve us finally of the burden of having to figure it all out. Because whether we know it or not, we are not in charge of the show. We are simply playing our small role. There is instead, a director or cosmic intelligence that can see the whole thing as it plays out. Our only duty is to make sure we listen to that intelligence as it gives us our cues and tells us our positions in the grand drama that is unfolding.

I read somewhere recently that the “ordinary world is a delusion with no sense of purpose”. Notice the word ordinary here, an intentional descriptive device clearly meant to distinguish it from, I suppose, the non-ordinary world. It is this distinction that is what is most interesting to me. This idea of the world we see on a day to day basis—the ordinary world—as not being real can be found at the heart of many spiritual teachings; it’s not something you stumble upon with surface religious teachings, but rather lies deeper within the mystical knowledge. Shamans in indigenous cultures also know that the world of the five senses, the world I affectionately called the 3-D world, is not all there is. But ironically, we treat it as if it is all there is, putting most of our attention there and making most of our decisions based on that assumption.

Given the prevalence of paranormal experiences–UFO sightings, encounters with ghosts and other unexplained phenomena, out of body and near death experiences, and so forth—I think that we might begin to challenge that assumption a little more.

Of course, some of us do. I’ve spent most of my life doing that. But I wonder what would happen if the majority of people focused their attention for long periods of time everyday on what lay beyond the five senses?

I suspect something extraordinary would happen. This “illusion” or distorted view of things we’re seeing would shift and we would begin to awaken to an expanded perception and viewpoint.

Those who have already done this, either consciously or by accident (such as in a near death experience), usually return from it with a much different way of seeing. As we know, once your perception shifts at that level, you can never return to your old way of seeing. All of your choices are influenced by that shift.

So we could say that waking up is not about changing or even transcending anything, it’s about seeing what is for the first time. It is always there, but in order to see it, we have to learn how to remove the blinders or the distorted lens.

It is truly waking up from the dream. But instead of unplugging from the matrix, you simply are able to see it without the usual limitations. Instead of feeling, as I quoted in that first sentence, as though life has no sense of purpose, its perfection and purpose are revealed.

If your worst nightmare is a world of pain, poverty, illness, injustice and suffering and one day you were able to wake up and realize that it had only been a dream, and that the REAL world was a world of peace, prosperity, health, justice and joy, how would you feel? What if the only difference between whether you experienced the nightmare or REAL world was what you chose to see at any given moment? What if you found out that human beings were not limited at all by their humanness, but in fact, were completely limitless due to their divinity? What if you recognized that you’d been duped all along into believing that human beings were powerless and sinful and limited–nothing more than thinking, self-aware animals? What would you do if you knew that the truth was that human beings are powerful, whole and completely free?

What then? Would you be angry? Shocked? Would you tell others?

If you are skeptical and doubt what I say, don’t take my word for it, test it out through your own experience and by observing others. Start looking for evidence of our divine nature and start tuning out our limitations. Every time you are bombarded with the negativity of the perceptions of the 3-D world, look for evidence to the contrary, look for things that cannot be explained by the five senses…coincidences, synchronicities, telepathy, spontaneous healing, etc. Expect to be surprised. Demand to see the truth. Refuse to buy into the lies that tell us this “ordinary” world all there is.

You know better.

The end is near. In our gut, we know something is wrong with the way things are. We feel it. The world is in crisis. People are suffering. The environment’s a mess. Our trust in our leaders is failing.

People everywhere are talking about the end times. When discussing the weather, one woman I know referred to it as apocalyptic.

There is no hiding from the challenges we’re facing. We live with the awareness of it and carry around with us everyday.

The problem is that few of us know what to do about it, so entrenched in the daily grind that we surrender to the complacency and passivity that is our lot in life. We don’t have time to think about the world’s problems, because our lives are literally being consumed by the details of survival.

Even on a personal level, our relationships, our families and our communities are strained to the breaking point. Not only do we not have time to self-reflect and build a foundation of relationship with the self, our relationships with others are under constant attack. Consumer society and the need for all of us to keep this great machine going, by necessity, requires us to sacrifice the very things we value most: our closest relationships.

We know this and yet, we cannot seem to escape it. Like prisoners, we try hard to accept the limitations that constrict our lives. We make the best of it. And when we can’t make the best of it, we try every available means of escape: we eat, drink, have sex, watch TV, shop, travel, anything to change the way we feel and give us temporary relief from the stress of the daily grind. And when that doesn’t work, we go to our doctor and ask for a drug to help us to cope and get through the day.

Not exactly a formula for a successful life. Pretty insane when you really look at it. Why aren’t we all in the streets protesting our captivity, screaming about the sacrifices we’re expected to make? Because, and here’s the slippery part, we don’t think anyone who can do anything about it will hear us. We don’t think anyone cares. And on one level we’re right. Why should our jailers want things to make things better for us, when we’re so good at making it better for them?

Did I just say there are people benefiting from our captivity? Absolutely. That’s exactly what I said. Think about it for a minute. This is nothing new. There have always been the lucky few who benefit from the hard work and sacrifice of the many. The only reason that this continues is that we allow it. We see it, but in truth, we’d rather not think about it. So we become passive and allow ourselves to be hypnotized by the belief that nothing can change. We give in to the agreed-upon mass amnesia that surrounds us and is reinforced everywhere we go, because we don’t want to cause trouble, we don’t want to attract attention, we don’t want to be perceived as abnormal or crazy. So we shut up and put up with the way it is, even though deep down inside we know something’s terribly wrong.

Well, I’m here to tell you, it doesn’t have to be this way. The only way that we can agree to being miserable is because we’ve forgotten something very important: we’ve forgotten who we are. The only reason this game of limitations can be perpetuated by those who are benefiting from it is if we agree to play it. And the only reason we agreed to such conditions is because we believed we didn’t have a choice. That is precisely what those in power are banking on.

But we do have a choice. Because we have the key to the prison door. We’ve always had the key, but we forgot where we put it.

Think of it this way. We were born as human beings. We were given this incredible instrument to play that has capabilities beyond our wildest dreams. We’ve been told we were made in the image of our creator, which essentially means that within us, we each have the same capabilities as that which created us. The problem is that even though we have this instrument, we weren’t given any instructions, so we don’t know how to play it. Our parents and our teachers teach us many things, but for the most part, the full range of the instrument is left un-utilized. Being mostly self-taught, we only know how to use a small percentage of the instrument (for most of us it is only around 10%). This keeps our range of experiences in life extremely limited. Our beliefs are limited so we develop limited habits of thinking and behaving. Our focus is mostly on the world outside of us, and because of that, we are heavily influenced by the thoughts and beliefs and actions of others.

This is a trick. This is how the odds of the game got so highly stacked against us and our freedom. The only way out of this endless loop, this nightmare, is to learn how to play the instrument we were given, to learn its capabilities.

Now here’s the tricky part. Where are we going to learn this? Who are we going to trust? Well, truth be told, there are a lot of smoke and mirrors out there, decoys and distractions and disinformation to throw you off the track. Why? Because as I said earlier, if you learned how to play your instrument, if you learned who you are, you would be free, you would be able to do those amazing, mind-blowing things called miracles, and you would be never see yourself as limited again. Essentially, if you knew how to utilize the other 90% of your capacity, you would become unstoppable. Your life and the lives of all human beings would change dramatically. Those in power would no longer be able to hold onto that power; and they would no longer be able to maintain the game they’re playing.

Without a doubt, it’s dangerous to talk about this. The risks are great. The infinite minefields that have been set up to keep all of us in prison are insidious and subtle and almost impossible to navigate through without help. But, given how close we are to destroying each other and the planet we live on, silence is no longer an option.

The bottom line is that we’ve been duped, duped into believing that bondage is the normal state of things and freedom an idealistic fantasy, duped into believing that things just “happen” to us, duped into believing that this is the way it is and we should simply accept it.

We’ve been told we’re sinners and weak and powerless and that salvation lies in a far-off place called Heaven. We’ve been sold a bill of goods and given a set of rules that will allegedly insure this salvation.

But at some time in your life haven’t you wondered what kind of world would be set up this way? Isn’t there something so inherently flawed and wrong with this picture?

Most of us don’t question things until we’re faced with a crisis, or even more likely when we’re facing our own death. Then the questions swirl around us en masse. Some of us decide to become seekers and try and find answers to the big questions, why are we here and what does this all mean?

Even with a passion to know the Truth though, the odds are against us finding it. Why? Because the world has been designed to keep the truth hidden and elusive. Most answers only breed more questions, leading to frustration and despair. It is so much easier to stick with what we know and do what everyone else is doing. There is very little support for real solutions to the human dilemma.

Then, even if we find what we think are solid answers, they don’t help, because most of the answers get stuck in the intellect and we cannot find a way to translate them into action or real change. So we spin around in circles trying to sort through the endless information and promises of freedom, enlightenment and salvation.

The answer is much simpler and more obvious than we think it is. In fact, it’s right under our noses. It’s within the instrument we were born with. Imagine if you will, that contained inside of this instrument is the very key that will set you free, answer all the questions you’ve ever had, and give you all the capabilities to change whatever circumstances in your life that you wish, a veritable magic box that holds within it the secret of who you really are, without limitations, a box full of miracles and all that is required to open it, is a willingness to do so.

Human beings are capable of extraordinary things. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, we forgot this. It’s time to wake up to our Divine Nature and stop betraying ourselves. The self-sabotage has to end here and now.

The first step is to acknowledge that we are truly powerful. The second is to listen to ourselves above all others. The third is to trust that freedom is our birthright and cannot be denied to us.

Sounds impossible, doesn’t it? The world will keep reinforcing the lies to keep you off balance and send you down endless dead ends. It is akin to battle, but once you remember who you are, the odds are very strong in your favor.

The only way to find the Truth is to stop listening to the world around you, for at least part of every day, until the Truth gets stronger and stronger and begins to convince you that you’re on the right track. The power of the world will lessen, the images will dim and the sounds will become muted as you begin to listen to your own inner voice. Eventually, you will discover that the things others are affected by no longer affect you, and you’ll establish a foundation of meaning in the world beyond appearances. The bondage will start to come off when you realize you have a say in what manifests around you, not because you change your actions, but because your thinking is changing.

Yes, it is slow, but accessible. It takes practice and persistence and commitment to the Truth. At times, you will be tempted to regress into the world of appearances; for its pull and its promises are seductive. You will question the validity of what I’m saying again and again and again. You will doubt and curse and feel despair.

But believe me, it’s worth it. Think about it. Think about the limitations you live with everyday. It isn’t so bad you say. I can live with the way it is. Today perhaps. But what about tomorrow when something unexpected hits your life? Then what? Then I suspect that some of this may start to make sense. The Truth will be illuminated in such as way that you can never forget it. It will be there to anchor every thought and action you make.

What have you got to lose?

The mystic is someone who feels a calling to answer life’s big questions. A mystic always wants to know more. A mystic is never really satisfied, until he or she is stretched in the area of intuitive wisdom and awareness. A mystic lives for the quest, for the satisfaction of knowing that the mystery of life can never be solved. There is always more to know, more experiences to have, more of life to express.

A mystic takes the road less traveled; in fact, a mystic is likely to try and find the road not yet traveled so that he or she can create a new way, to cut a path forward, to make the way easier for others.

The connection to Source feels more natural to the mystic than the life of the world. Mystics spend part of everyday strengthening this connection, for without it they feel lost.

Many of us feel an inclination toward the mystical life, but are often too caught up and seduced by the attractions of the world to fully embody this path. Many artists are on a path similar to mystics. In fact, many artists are also mystics. The two paths complement each other on many levels. Both are more connected to their inner lives than they are to the world. Both are intensely curious about the mysteries of life. Both feel called to express either the mystical or artistic aspects of human life or both.

Mystics are gifted with a high level of intuition. They are typically empathic and feel other’s suffering deeply. They need solitude to recharge and quiet time for self-reflection. This does not equip them with tools to function in the world the way the average person does. Because of this, both the artist and the mystic are outsiders—they don’t fit into the status quo or conform well into society. They typically feel more at home on the fringe.

The life of the mystic is about transcendence and seeing beyond the ordinary world of everyday appearances. Mystics are looking to regain a sense of unity with all that is. They are ever aware that there is something missing in life and they spend their lives seeking this reconnection with the greatness that life is.

Never satisfied with the ordinary, mystics are willing to do whatever it takes to find this place of unity, including spending long stretches of time alone. Reducing the external stimuli allows for an immersion in the vast expanse of inner worlds, which brings about a renewed perspective of the world. It is a constant state of death and rebirth, as one lets go of identifying with the small self in exchange for a connection with a larger presence.

The yearning for freedom from ordinary human limitations is what drives the mystic forward through the toughest challenges and past the most impossible obstacles. This sense of freedom, rather than being a longing for something unknown, instead, for the mystic, feels more akin to a memory of a state of being–a return to something rather than an arrival—freedom being the natural human state.

To be in the world and yet not of it, is the ultimate state of being spoken about by our great spiritual teachers. Not abandoning what is, but embracing it fully without feeling infringed upon by it in any way. The mystical life is the discovery of the space between breaths, the infinitesimal gap in time where everything stops, the place between the seen and the unseen. It is this place that creation emanates from and gives birth to the expression of what is. It is in this place that freedom is found.

For the mystic, nothing less than this freedom will do.

a river of emptiness carries me into the night…
the water touches my skin but does not wash away the fear…
the unknown beckons my innocence and my dreams…
challenging me to bear the weight of them in this narrow place…

i call out, but the sound of my voice is lost in the hollow sky…
unseen and unheard, i drift into the abyss of my existence…
certain that others have traveled here before…
i grab onto that communion and breathe in the temporary solace it brings…

a momentary pause in the darkness reveals something hidden…
a shadow, a glimpse into something beyond my primal sight…
a gift of the mysterious wrapped in the calm of what is and has always been…
so steady and solid and yet unable to be named or grabbed onto…

my heartbeat anchors me in the incessant movement of change…
my body responding and reacting to it knows not what…
aching, purging, expelling, cleansing, letting go of all that was…
to make room in this moment, this time, this place for what is yet to be…

each choice touches every other choice and when they meet, life explodes…
in a new unknown direction born on the wings of a thought or decision…
so simple, yet so caught in the web of the infinite myriad of choices…
emanated both consciously and unconsciously on the breath of human life…

in this place of aloneness, the wheels of time stop…
allowing me to see and observe the space between choices…
the abyss of nothingness between breaths…
here is where we all reside all the time…
but so caught up in the illusion of movement…
we miss it…

we miss it and falsely perceive ourselves as going somewhere and as doing something…
when all that exists is the burst of energy that erupts out of the void of being…
to keep us interested and occupied and invested in the game of life…
a mind dance set upon us by the one who created us and invited us to play…

Plugging into Source…

Bringing forth what one discovers there…

Moving IT from thought to form…

Creating the seen from the Unseen…

No limit to the greatness of that which is created, except what we put there…

Desire fuels Creation…

Desire calls forth that which is wanting to be seen…

We are the channel, the conduit through which God creates…

A partnership of existence without which neither can Be or Know or Love…

A dance that makes the invisible visible…

Bringing forth what is dark and making it Light…

Infinite possibilities and endless choices in this…

Our heart leads the Way and lets us know what God wants to create and bring to form through us…

We merely instruments of the Divine, the Ultimate Doer…

That orchestrates the symphony of Life into Perfect Expression…

Our Creator gave ALL OF ITS creations free will to create. In that place of free choice, dimensions were manifested that projected the illusion of limitation and duality, creating a dense matrix of shadows, tricks and lies that veil the Truth about who we are and where we came from.

This veil is the cloud of amnesia and forgetting and suspension of disbelief about our divine origin, causing us to be at affect of a duality that isn’t real and to believe we are limited and powerless and victims of lack, illness and conflict.

This amnesia keeps us in bondage and makes us slaves to the unreal. We unknowingly accept our fate and falsely believe this is all there is and that the three-dimensional world is a solid, immovable and chaotic realm that we were born into. Like prisoners, we adapt to the rules of this realm, believing we have no choice and no power to escape or change it. We believe we must obey the rules of this realm and stay in the box of our beliefs about it or risk pain or certain death. Fear is our warden. Uncertainty and doubt keep us in line. We resign ourselves to finding whatever pleasure we can within it, looking outside of ourselves for the next thing to relieve our feelings of limitation, even though these pleasures are never long-lasting and are threatened by constant change and suffering.

Within each of us is a feeling that something’s not right, a feeling that there is something inherently wrong with the world we’re living in, that it doesn’t make sense and that the rules go against something deep inside of us. Some memory exists there and it makes us agitated and confused and afraid. Some of us feel this at greater levels than others and begin to question everything. We seek out answers in books, workshops, meditation, techniques, gurus, but nothing works. All external answers throw us off track and leave us empty-handed. Our minds spin in the confusion. Some of us give up hope of ever finding an answer. Some of us seek out escape through death. Others escape with drugs and oblivion. Still others shut down and hide out in relationships or churches or work.

But then there are a few of us who are determined to find out the Truth. Some powerful longing leads us to seek the answers within, and there we discover the key to unlock the prison door that had been there all along. Finally…finally, we connect with something greater than ourselves and begin the journey of remembering who we really are.

The 3-D is a shadow world, an illusion, a holographic matrix, a massive projection created by an immense agreed-upon belief system about the world we live in. In this shadow world many different beings interact, some seen and many unseen — all part of the duality of dark and light. This matrix isn’t real or solid, but the appearance of it is convincing.

We are at a time in history where the density of the 3-D duality has reached a critical point. We can no longer afford the amnesia about our true origin or we risk losing everything. This cycle has been repeated over and over. There have been cataclysmic fires, floods, ice ages, polar shifts and entire civilizations that evolved to a certain point and then self-destructed.

Our free will gives us all the option to evolve or destroy ourselves.

This is what we’re up against right now. And the only thing that will save us is to free ourselves from the hold of the amnesia that is keeping us imprisoned.

The question is: how to do this?

Awaken and remember who you are.

When you first open yourself to the being a student of Truth, Awakening, Enlightenment or whatever you want to call it, the path is wide and full of wiggle room or room to wander and explore its vastness…the world feels immediately limitless and full of possibility. There is a sweet nectar of magic and new expectations as we come out of our outworn shells…our hearts are open, our minds are open and we feel ready for anything. Our intuition begins to come to life…emerging with a never before seen strength and power. What we don’t know is though we are now feeling very much awake compared to our formerly somnambulant existence, we are blind and unable to see what lies ahead.

In this case, ignorance is definitely bliss. For if we knew the hardships and pain that lay ahead, we surely wouldn’t take another step. We are given a luxurious grace period to tally in, wandering down this road, checking out this experience, looking under this rock and that one…just exploring our new way of being.

After awhile, though, this grace period comes to an end, the excitement and the magic dies down, and the hard work begins. This is bittersweet and often requires a period of mourning this loss of innocence, but we must realize that we have been preparing for this. It is not sprung on us out of the blue. The time arrives when the path becomes narrow and defined and oh, so precise. To venture from it even a little bit causes us tremendous pain and suffering. It becomes our duty to listen to our inner wisdom and follow it to the letter. We can no longer afford to wander or make choices that go against the Truth. At this point, there is no turning back, and to veer off the path feels akin to walking into an electric fence, ever there to remind us to stay on track. It’s like an agreement or a promise that cannot easily be broken.

Let me clarify something here. You wouldn’t have gotten to this point on the path if you didn’t want to be there. Not many of us are willing to undergo the rigorous journey that leads here in the first place. It’s not for everyone. This is why we were given free will, to get here you have to consciously agree to it. You have to want it more than anything else life has to offer. You have to have run through all your other options until you have absolutely had enough and are completely fed up with trying to do anything else. Then and only the, can you be absolutely sure that you are ready to say yes.

This is also when you discover what that longing is inside you that nothing seems to satisfy, no matter what you do or how hard you try. This is what is referred to as surrender. This is when you realize that following your own will doesn’t work and never has. This is when you are willing to see that your life is connected to something greater and that you are actually part of some Divine Design that will benefit tremendously from your conscious participation in it.

So by the time you recognize how narrow the path has gotten, you’re not really surprised. Compared with what it took to get here this is rather small.

You have already had to let go of innumerable things to get to this point. Because lining up to the Truth means traveling very light. There is very little you can carry with you. Remember, you are heading through the eye of the needle here. Not much that will fit through such a small opening.

This sounds like a paradox. On the one hand, it is expansive and limitless beyond belief. On the other, I’m speaking of how narrow, precise and small the path is It sounds very serious and adult and very sober, and in a way it is. Thankfully, that’s not the whole picture. It’s just part of the process.

The bottom line is that you entered into this because you wanted to be happy and free and fulfilled, and since nothing else you tried worked, something deep inside of you moved you to try this. Unfortunately, many people quit before the miracle. They hit the wall of despair and failure and give up hope of ever finding a life of meaning. Some people die or even take their own lives because they see no other way out. All they see is limitation and bondage wherever they look, not realizing there is a key inside of them that unlocks the door to what they are seeking.

As the path begins to narrow, it is a sign you have made tremendous progress and the guidance you need to keep going is very clear. You can now discern much more easily the difference between your old way of being and the Truth. Prior to this, it was much more nebulous and foggy. You had to really get quiet and listen to the guidance you were receiving. It came in more like a whisper, now it feels more like a shout. Not able to shut our ears to it any longer, we have no choice but to listen.

1. Human beings are asleep and unconscious and suffer from mass amnesia. We are born into the world open, receptive, conscious and close to Source. As we mature, we soak up the genetic, ancestral beliefs of our ancestors and the agreed-upon beliefs of the society we live in…friends, neighbors, school, the media, etc. This process happens over time, and it is so subtle, we are unaware of how the collective consciousness affects all of our thoughts, emotions, actions and reactions. We are trained to focus on the past and the future, never on the present, reinforcing our unconsciousness. We spend most of our time in a chaotic state, reacting to the constant input from the world around us, never realizing that most of our reactions are to thoughts and feelings that aren’t ours but those that we adopted, borrowed and absorbed over time. We have taken such ownership of this state of being that we consider it our normal state of being, not realizing there is a whole other way of being possible.
2. As human beings, we believe we are weak, powerless, limited, and destined to live a life of suffering and quiet desperation. We see ourselves as victims of our lives and the world we live in. Things happen to us and all we can do is react and respond the best way we know how. This is reinforced by the belief system of the world we live in. We think it is normal to experience physical illness and emotional pain and problems in our relationships, our finances, our work, our communities, and our environment. We think this is the way it is and that we have to accept it or at least find ways to cope with it or escape from it. We don’t know that by continuing to adhere to the agreed-upon beliefs and not questioning them, we are perpetuating the very suffering that we’re trying to deal with.
3. We are imprisoned by our unconsciousness and our belief that we are powerless and limited. We are imprisoned by our perception of ourselves as victims. We are imprisoned by the view that suffering is normal.
4. We believe the answer to our suffering lies outside of ourselves. We seek answers in all the wrong places. We can find temporary relief, but nothing that will last, nothing that will empower us, nothing that lifts us out of the unconsciousness, nothing that will set us free and remind us who we are and what we’re capable of.
5. We don’t know that we create our own experience. Every thought, belief, emotion, idea, assumption, expectation, desire, everything we put out from our mind “EVERYTHING” is input into the collective and directly manifests as our perception and experience without fail. Most of what we put out, we put out unconsciously, without monitoring it or observing it, because most of the time we’re on automatic pilot or cruise controlling our way through life and then wondering why things are turning out the way they are. This is a life lived asleep and without accountability or responsibility. This is an imprisoned life with no options; the life of a perpetual victim where life “appears” to be happening to you so all you can do is react.
6. The only way to stop this vicious cycle is to wake up and become conscious of everything that’s coming in and everything that’s going out. Like a firewall you have to stop what you don’t want before it gets into your system and becomes part of you; at the same time, you have to monitor what you’re putting out. This is so that you can take responsibility for creating your experience. To do that, you have to begin to observe what’s going on, both inside and outside of you. To observe, you have to slow down enough to watch and listen. Watch your mind; listen to your body and intuition.
7. Human beings are extraordinary beings capable of extraordinary things, miraculous things. Human beings are strong, powerful and limitless. Human beings are completely free. Human beings can create anything we want to create and do anything we want to do. We can perform the most impossible of miracles, the most mind-blowing feats. We can transcend space and time, experience multi-dimensions, access any information that exists anywhere in the universe, heal any illness, and speak to those who aren’t in the physical and on and on. But in the fog of the mass amnesia, we have convinced ourselves that this isn’t true. We have bought into the collective lie about this and forgotten who we really are. Most of us have had glimpses of the extraordinary, but when it’s over we file it away because we don’t know how to access it at will; so we wait, hopeful that it will happen again or we associate it with a person, place or thing and try to repeat it. We don’t really believe this is something we have any say or control over. We claim that miracles are from God. That they happen to us from somewhere outside of us. This, too, is reinforced by the world we live in. We all agree on it so it must be true? Right? Wrong.
8. The Truth is that what we call paranormal or peak experiences are actually our normal state and can be accessed at will. This is the nature of who we are, and accessing this is as natural as breathing. The problem is that we’ve forgotten how. Or if you want to put it another way, we were born with an incredible instrument called a human form capable of amazing things, but we don’t know how to play it. Our parents didn’t know how to play it, so they couldn’t show us. Our teachers didn’t know how to play it, so they couldn’t show us. Neither could our friends, loved ones, neighbors, co-workers, government officials, religious leaders, etc. Why? Because the instructions cannot be found in the world around us or outside of us. We’ve always had them and had access to them but didn’t know where to look. These instructions are the very thing that will free us from the amnesia and open up the infinite capabilities we all have.
9. There is only one place to find them and that is within. The Truth about who we are and what we’re capable of is within. To access this, you have to shut the world out and listen to the voice that comes from inside of you.
10. The Truth within can only be known by direct experience, not with the intellect or mind, books, techniques, a teacher or guru or words. Only with the visceral (bodily sensations) and the intuitive (information that comes in through by-passing the mind). With a commitment to take the time and space to learn how to do this, the reward is that you will not only be able to consciously create your own extraordinary experiences at will, over time, those experiences will become your normal.
11. The world would be different if each of us discovered that we were only using 10% of our capabilities as humans! And that if we had access to and used the other 90%, we could open our experience up to infinite possibilities. It would be exciting and exhilarating and wonderful! And for most of us, quite frightening. Why? Because it is unknown. We are used to the way things are, even if they are limited and cause us to suffer. But there’s an even greater problem. This freedom and discovery of our divine capabilities within our human instrument is also threatening to those who are attached to and benefiting from things remaining just as they are. This discovery is very threatening (if you don’t believe me think of what happened to Christ), not only to the apparent stability and security of the world we live in, but also to the part of us, the ego, that is used to using only a small part of the instrument of being human and is very attached to the old, and especially the agreed-upon way of doing things. It will become very afraid if you stir things up and try to change it. The world is just a group of egos that feel the same way and want things to remain the way they are because the unknown is frightening, change is scary, and we believe that we may not survive if we can discover how to play our instrument. This discovery would change everything. People would end up making different choices, doing things differently, because they would be freed up, and what would happen to those in positions of power and wealth? And when people feel threatened they will go to any length to stop something from happening.
12. People need to be hooked up by direct experience to the Source within, never linking it to any one person, or technique or environment, so that they can take responsibility for the discovery, and honor it fully as theirs and theirs alone, and something that is accessible no matter what.