If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.  Chinese proverb

Now that Divine Approach has been open for over a month we are ready to meet the people in our community and listen to them. People are fascinating especially if we our own fears and desires are not clouding our vision. We learn so much about ourselves from others when we suspend our judgments.

Personalities of every type are everywhere and everywhen. There are over 6 billion humans living on the earth at this moment and billions more between lives. Each personality has a unique perspective of life to share.

We are each subject to the constraints of time and space. We each have inherent powers and abilities at our disposal. For example the power to concentrate, the power to create, and the power to speak our available to all of us. What we decide to do with our powers is up to us.

We each have thoughts and desires that can rule us if we do not rule them. We each have dreams and ideals that move us forward with hope. We each end up learning that the journey is more important than the destination. We each deal with our conscience so we can sleep at night without guilt.

We each choose our own path wherever it leads. Every day we decide whether to stay the course or change directions.

We each have dealt with the dogmas of our society and how to free ourselves from them.

We each have to deal with our own karma in this life the best we can. We each deal with birth and death.

We each have an external life that others can see as well as our own personal inner life hidden from others.

We each have latent within divine powers as part of our spiritual heritage. It cannot be hidden from those who can see.

Is it any wonder why people are so fascinating? How can we hate, envy or even dislike anyone?

We hope to meet you at the Springfest on May 26^th right in the heart of Five Points.

Life is good. Shine on.

It has been three weeks since we opened our doors on Good Friday. The word of our opening is just now beginning to spread. We are getting encouraging words from the other merchants in the area. They tell us we picked a good location for our business and that we should do well. We have the same feeling. We know this will take time, and we are prepared to wait for those to find us when they are ready. It will also take time for you and the community to understand who we are and what Divine Approach is about.

I introduced myself to many people on a variety of MeetUp groups. I was encouraged to see so many people already attuned to the higher vibrations of the Age of Aquarius. There are seekers on a variety of paths all sensing there is more and they are ready for it. Special word out to any of them who found us on Meet Up group – we view ourselves as sort of a base camp of spiritual mountain climbers. We want to make sure you have what you need for your next climb. If we don’t have it we will get it. Please let us know what you need.

We are getting acquainted with the Five Points community and meeting other merchants in the area. Everybody is so helpful and friendly. We hope to reciprocate as much as possible.

We will be involved with the “5 Points SpringFest and Home Brew Competition” on Saturday, May 26^th. Please stop by and introduce yourselves.

If you plan to visit our center please allow plenty of time to browse our large collection of esoteric books. Take a few minutes to look up your destiny or that of your spouse, children, parents, or friends in the Destiny book. You can sit down can color a tarot card or Mandala by yourself or with your children on a Saturday afternoon. All while listening to relaxing music.

If you enjoy expanding your mind or learning more about yourself and your role in life then you will want to spend some time at Divine Approach.

We look forward to each day of the opening process and learn all we can from the day before.

All is a blessing.

We would like to cordially invite each and every one of you to our Grand Opening on Friday April 6, 2012. We will be open from noon to midnight. It is the first Friday of the month and Good Friday to our Christian brethren. We are located right in Five Points at the corner of Margaret and Forbes. Our address is 2012 Forbes Street.

We look forward to meeting each and every one of you and introducing ourselves to all of you. We hope to provide products which can open your mind, expand your consciousness, and help you along your spiritual path – whatever path that may be.

Most of us are heading up the proverbial mountain in search of meaning and purpose of life, and our role in it. Divine Approach is a base camp along the way. Stop in, take a break, rejuvenate your spirit and body, and continue along your path.

Our initial selection of products is based purely on our experience and intuition.  Going forward we want to provide what you want or need to help your progress. If we don’t have it we will help you get it. If you have a question we will provide an answer.

Please stop by if you can. If you can’t make it for our Grand Opening, then stop by whenever you have a chance.

See you there.
Frank

We finally began setting up shop in beautiful Five Points right along the banks of the St. Johns River. The new moon is a wonderful time to start an enterprise and so we decided now was the time. Our address is so easy to remember – 2012 Forbes. In a sense 2012 marks the beginning in space and time of Divine Approach. It existed in time for many years in the non spatial higher planes, but not until this year does it exist in the physical world. It is like the sapling breaking the surface for all to see. We hope you all will enjoy being a part of it through as a patron, student, volunteer, or teacher. 

We will be slowly revealing the many aspects of Divine Approach. It will take time to understand it completely. Time will unfold it one petal at a time. We have only broken the surface right now.

Our truck arrived with all our treasured belongings on the 22nd but before we could move in we had to do all the prerequisites of getting electricity and keys. With the help of our friend Dave, today we began to clean up the outside a little and unload the boxes. There were thousands of acorns in the yard. I am from the north where there are many oaks and I never remember that many acorns. We filled almost twenty bags full of leaves and acorns. Our neighbor Victoria, of Simplimente Victoria Alterations, next door helped as well.

We are right behind the Sun Ray Movie Theater by the old Derby House and Wendy’s. It appears to be in the shadier area too. I know how hot it can get here in the summers. Not sure how many people walk by our store, but we did notice the trolley parked out on Margaret Street and thought how nice to have the trolley drop people off virtually at our doorstep.

The people we have dealt with are all so friendly and willing to help. What a perfect start. We need to get our application in for the Riverside Arts Market. We will hopefully be accepted through the application process and be able to start in March. Look for the Divine Approach booth with the cool spiritual art. Our art will only be available here in Five Points. It is really good for meditating and aligning yourself internally. This may happen without your immediate awareness.

Tomorrow we will begin to organize the inside. Hang some pictures. We still need to get more furniture, but we will do it slowly and steadily. So there will be some room to sit and look at a few books, listen to some music and maybe watch a video.

I sadly go back to Cleveland for a few weeks as I transition my way out of my current consulting career and begin working full time at Divine Approach. My heart has already been here for a few years.

We are now moving along our path as we begin to create a center in Jacksonville, Florida from which we hope to provide the resources to help those journeying along their spiritual path or searching for one.

It is hoped that our center will attract those in the community at various evolutionary stages who desire to expand their awareness, and are willing to keep an open mind. We will also help those further along their path  who may desire to provide service to our brothers and sisters through their compassion and love.

We hope to provide a synergistic environment within which the individuals can expand their inner and outer awareness.

There is so much on the internet to read to help expand your awareness. In fact there is so much that many get overwhelmed and give up. We will provide tools to help you navigate through the labyrinth and keep track of where you have been and where you are going.

It is a paradox that we are at the same time all similar and all different. Our center will accommodate all travelers along their path. Choosing no path is choosing a path.

Our journey will lead us through our minds, our aspirations, our feelings, our soul, and our spirit, as well as our daily life. We will help you integrate all these aspects in a unified whole. We will strive to provide books, artifacts, symbols, journals, art supplies, and other tools to help you express your spiritual, philosophical, or religious souls. Whether it be through meditation, instruction or participation we will help you along your way.

There is so much more we want to share, please check back.   In the coming months we will list our location, hours and services. Thank you for your encouraging thoughts.

I introduced Torkom Saraydarian and showed a sample of his work. Torkom also was a gifted musician and produced many CDs. I also wrote that there are many other spiritual teachers who are not well known and may be apparently ahead of their time.

There lived another man by the name of Rudolf Steiner. He lived Austria, Germany, and Switzerland from 1861 to 1925. When I first read his books I was immediately impressed with his understanding of both the physical and spiritual worlds. In addition to the vast knowledge his way with words moved me.

He certainly can expand our mental rings beyond belief. He will show us where our rings are too constricted. Thinking is our link with the spiritual world so we need to expand our thinking – expand our rings.

Whether we are philosophers, scientists, artists, teachers, or students he adds insights and new perspectives to our craft. I cannot begin to provide a complete description of this man.

There is a website www.rsarchives.org that contains information about him and much more. Many of his books are and lectures are accessible as well.

Here are a few statements about him found on the site (in italics).

RUDOLF STEINER, philosopher, scientist and educator, (1861–1925), has achieved world-wide fame as the originator of the Science of the Spirit known as Anthroposophy, and as a pioneer of genius in a variety of fields of learning.

“Steiner’s gift to the world was a moral and meditative way to objective vision, a way appropriate to the psychological and physiological constitution of Western man. If accepted in the spirit of humility, altruism and truthfulness in which it was given, it could bridge the existing cleft between a man’s religious conviction and his intellect and will. It could add comprehension to our existing knowledge and thus revive the vision without which our generation will hardly find the solution to its problems.”

Franz Winkler, M.D., Man the Bridge between Two Worlds.

In Rudolf Steiner-An Introduction to His Life and Thought
By Olin D. Wannamaker

The death of this Austrian thinker in the Swiss countryside near Basel, in March 1925, brought to an end a career of intense and varied intellectual and spiritual activities whose vital influence on contemporary culture was already manifest and seems obviously destined to permanent and profound significance. When a single individual, after spending years in the comprehensive study of philosophy and the sciences as well as literature and the arts, after having produced a number of volumes of a penetrating philosophical character and deeply spiritual import, applies his thought effectually to the creation of a new type of architecture, a new therapy engaging the active interest of numbers of highly trained medical men, radically new conceptions and methods in agriculture, fundamentally new and challenging ideas regarding the social order, and a school numbering a thousand pupils based upon an entirely novel departure from current pedagogy and attracting widespread favorable interest, such a person must embody unique human traits.

These tangible manifestations of the genius of Rudolf Steiner in the spheres of medicine, art, education, agriculture, and the social order become the more impressive when we trace them back to the soil out of which they grew — to his deeply spiritual philosophy. To state the elements of that philosophy at the beginning of this sketch seems almost to contradict the spirit of its originator; for Rudolf Steiner did not assume the role of a philosopher and a teacher of other men until he had reached the age of forty years and had brought to full maturity processes of thought which can be traced back all the way to his childhood. Nevertheless, it will clarify our conception of the man and will add to the interest of this brief sketch of his life and illuminate it in retrospect if we do here summarize briefly the fundamentals of his conception of the world and of man. Whatever may seem startling in this bald analysis of his thought will in turn be clarified when placed in its proper setting, which can be done only as we trace the genesis and evolution of his whole system of ideas.

Some of us may have heard about Waldorf schools which were based on the educational philosophy of Rudolf Steiner. He even wrote a book on bees that was fascinating and not at all what I expected. I have yet to meet anybody with his wealth of wisdom.

For those of us who are believers in Christ he takes it to the next level. Most of us have a mere historical knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth and know the rest from our own understanding of the bible. There are likely a lot of questions we have that have yet to be answered to our satisfaction. There is so much more to learn about his life and death that will immensely to our inner being.

Rudolf Steiner’s created the term Anthroposophy (An-thro-pos-o-phy). Here is Wikipedia defines the term.:

Anthroposophy, a philosophy founded by Rudolf Steiner, postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world accessible to direct experience through inner development. More specifically, it aims to develop faculties of perceptive imagination, inspiration and intuition through cultivating a form of thinking independent of sensory experience,[1][2] and to present the results thus derived in a manner subject to rational verification.

In its investigations of the spiritual world, anthroposophy aims to attain the precision and clarity of natural science’s investigations of the physical world.[1] Anthroposophy brings the spiritual traditions of central Europe – including transcendental idealist philosophy – into a modern context,[3] though its historical roots lie partly in Theosophy.

Anthroposophical ideas have been applied practically in many areas including Steiner/Waldorf education, special education (most prominently the Camphill Movement), biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophical medicine, ethical banking and the arts.[1][4][5][6] The Anthroposophical Society has its international center at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland.

I have been to the Goetheanum in Switzerland. Its architecture is amazing and the artwork and auditorium were spiritually moving.

We will see that he has studied the spiritual world using the same methods as a biologist studies plants. The difference is he studies aspects that can not be verified with our five senses. He was able to see these other worlds directly, but wanted to understand what he was seeing.

We must read his books with a completely open mind. He often stresses that he does not want us to believe it as fact. but just to allow it into our minds and let the powers of thought work on it for a  while. It is only our own limitations that will allow it in. Our higher selves will help us decide its validity.

Olin D. Wannamaker used these words:

The open-minded reader, hospitable even to the most unexpected visitors from other minds, may at least be willing to entertain these ideas as transient guests until they shall either have established their right of residence or proven their incompatibility with the rest of his inner world of thought.

He also added:

It is important, however, not to make the radical mistake at this point of adjudging this first single element in the analysis of his world-conception and then accepting or rejecting the whole fabric according as we may react at this stage. Let us take what we may call, if we so choose, Rudolf Steiner’s postulates, though he would never have called them by a name implying purely logical and inferential reasoning, and simply let them lie in our minds like seed in the soil. If, when all these germinal ideas are planted within the mind, we do not discover that there is a vitality in them, that they spring into life and growth, then we cannot do otherwise than go our own way without any help from them. To reject one of the ideas before we have hospitably entertained them all together is to render impossible any reasonable consideration of a world-conception which, to many thoughtful persons, is proving to be in extraordinary measure stimulating and satisfying, and also capable of producing concrete results in varied fields of application.

I am amazed how such a man can be so unknown. He seems to have all the answers that we are seeking. We know that science is reaching its limits, but scientists are not equipped to know where to go next. We know religion in its current state has reached its limits. We continue to question. Thinking is our nature and is in our nature.

One final quote confirms my amazement.

“That the academic world has managed to dismiss Steiner’s works as inconsequential and irrelevant, is one of the intellectual wonders of the twentieth century. Anyone who is willing to study those vast works with an open mind (let us say, a hundred of his titles) will find himself faced with one of the greatest thinkers of all time, whose grasp of the modern sciences is equaled only by his profound learning in the ancient ones.”

Russell W. Davenport, The Dignity of Man.

We will see what he has to say about our make-up as body, soul, and spirit. We will learn much that will help us see our path more clearly. We will learn how to use our minds more completely. Remember we take in the impressions of the physical world through our senses and we also take in impressions from the spiritual world through our intuitions. When we learn to about these two worlds as well as the soul world we will have a firm foundation upon which we can base our future studies.

I could speak about Rudolf Steiner and his books for years and still barely scratch the surface. I will stop here for today.

I would like to welcome those who have recently found Divine Approach. We began at the beginning of this year and hope to continue for many years to come. We plan to open our Divine Approach center in Jacksonville, Florida in the near future. Read about our vision in the About section of our website. We will keep you posted on our progress.

A lot is happening in the world right now that could make us fearful or angry if we do not have a solid foundation which can withstand the changes in the external (physical) world around us. We are forced to begin rethinking our view of the world. Events which at one time seemed virtually impossible are happening. Who thought countries would go bankrupt? Who could imagine that tsunamis and earthquakes could be so devastating? What if gas were $10 a gallon? What if we lost all of our possessions? How would we react? Would our foundation be shaken? Would we become angry or fearful? How will this affect our thinking?

We can control only how we act upon the physical world and how we react to the physical world around us. The physical world makes itself known to us through our senses. We see colors, hear sounds, and feel substances and by them become connected with the physical world.

We also have spiritual world around us in addition to physical world. However we can not become acquainted with this world through our five senses, rather through our intuition. In order for intuition to be understood we must have a clear mind. While it is full of a lot of noise it cannot be heard let alone understood. In order for us to rethink our view of the ever changing world we must have clear minds and clear thinking.

Torkom Saraydarian states in the chapter titled Clear Thinking in his book Education as Transformation Part II – Basic Education: (Note quotes from his book are in italics. My comments are interspersed and are not in italics.)

The success, prosperity, and spiritual achievement of any person rests on his clear thinking. If one does not have clear thinking, he will not be a successful person because he will contradict himself, create inner conflicts and confusion, and involve himself in time-wasting activities and problems. Even if he inherits money or other possessions, without clear thinking he will use them in such a way that he will increase his problems and waste all that he has.

Clear thinking also leads you toward spiritual progress because it shows you the most essential in your life which you should follow. Clearness of mind can be understood through the analogies of clear water, clear air, and clear windows and mirrors. Clear water does not have contamination, mud, or agitation in it. Clear air has great visibility. A clear window does not obscure your vision. A clear mirror reflects your face exactly.

Thinking is the act of using your mind to solve problems, to find better ways to carry out your spiritual perfection, and to make yourself happy, healthy, intelligent, creative, and noble. Thinking must be balanced by two factors – the ability to solve problems and the ability to find new ways for spiritual perfection. These are two factors that keep the activities of the mind in balance.

I like the analogies he uses.

Clear water does not have contamination, mud, or agitation in it. Contamination is in the water itself. Mud is something added to the water. Agitation is the act of moving the waters creating waves and therefore the reflections off of the water are not clear.

Clear air has great visibility. As we know the higher we go the clearer the air gets and the farther we can see. If we are in smog we can not see clearly.

A clear window does not obscure your vision. If our windows are tinted we will not see the world clearly.

A clear mirror reflects your face exactly. This means we have the ability to see something as it is. We do not think clearly if we our thinking does not reflect the outer world accurately.

Torkom further goes on to describe the various states of mind through which we go through as we evolve our minds. Let’s see if any sound familiar to us.

Confused mind.
This is a state in which your mind has no goal, no direction, and no discernment. Confusion is also a state of mind in which things appear to you differently than what they exactly are. Your chaotic thoughts obscure your vision. A confused mind does not have certainty, a center of control, principles, or standards.

When we are not centered we do not have a place to gather and organize our thoughts. Thoughts pop in and out of mind at random. We see no cause and effect relationships and all that happens to us appears as random events.

Conflicting mind
Such a mind is always split. It fights against itself. A person with a conflicting mind decides something, and the next moment he changes his decision or promise; he never fulfills his promise. He believes something, then denies it. This is a mind that assembles and disassembles. His personality is split, or his personality and soul are fighting against each other. In this stage, the awakening soul is trying to bring the personality in line and is creating conflict on the mental field.

Our minds can help us attain our desires, but they also allow intuition to enter which can cause conflicts in our mind. We know we should not do something, but we do it any ways.

Slave mind
When the mind is controlled by the blind urges and drives of the physical body, by the glamors and desires of the emotional body, and the illusions, vanity, separatism, and ego of the mental body, the mind turns into a slave and exists only to satisfy the wishes of the body, emotions, and lower mind. For example, your body wants sex, drugs, and alcohol. The slave mind says “Yes, sir, I will try to find a way to serve your wishes.

When your mind is a slave, even its knowledge does not help you reject the impositions of the lower bodies. This is why we say that it is not knowledge that helps your spiritual progress but your transformation and beingness.

When you discipline your personality and gain control of your lower bodies, you can experience true freedom. After gaining freedom, your lower vehicles serve your spiritual goals. Only a free mind can develop control over itself.

This does not just apply to sex, drugs, and alcohol. This could happen with coffee, food, video games, or gambling. Any addiction that is materially based will cause pain after death when it can no longer be satisfied. We don’t want our lives to be defined by our addictions.

Preconditioned or prejudiced mind
Some minds work under the influence of post hypnotic suggestions. They are preconditioned. A prejudiced mind is a mind that cannot open, unfold, and expand. There are limiting walls around it. This causes the mind not to see the important and essential facts in life and to lose opportunities for cooperation and expansion.

It is interesting to know that the human mind can be preconditioned in the fields of politics, education, philosophy, arts, sciences, religion, and economics. Preconditioned minds are always hindrances in their own field because they do not let their particular field expand and grow. Any time a mind is prejudiced or preconditioned, it becomes a dangerous mind and stands against human welfare.

This is one we don’t often realize. I often used the term “rings” to represent our various thoughts or groups of thoughts and our desires. We should strive to keep these rings as open as possible for as long as possible. When we our rings are forced to be limited to what our science or religion or philosophy permits we are prejudiced. We can increase our understanding by allowing other information to enter our minds. We don’t have to believe it, but by not allowing it in we are not thinking clearly.

Fanatical mind
This is a state which continues for many years. Or sometimes – if it connected to religion for many lives, until the accumulating shocks of disappointments crack the walls of fanaticism and shed light into the mind. Sometimes when a fanatic’s mind is opened, it goes to extremes, and the fanatic denies all that he had worshipped and becomes a slave of his pleasures. If a fanatic is caught at the right time by a wise person, he can be led gradually out of his shell and into new values.

This seems to be an extreme case of the preconditioned or prejudiced mind. This does seem to be tied to religion including the atheists.

Striving mind
A striving mind tries to find new ways to solve his own problems and expand his horizons. He tries to make his existence beautiful, intelligent, healthy, prosperous, and creative. A striving mind is an awakening mind. He tries to eliminate all that was built in the past as hindrances on that path of perfection. The patterns of various habits are attacked and the vision is seen. A call is heard, and action is taken to meet the call.

These are the first signs of striving:
• The person begins to search and ask. He tries to discover the causes of his limitations
• He searches for wisdom
• He tries to discipline his nature
• He tries to cultivate virtues
• He tries to come in contact with centers of light

This appears to be the opposite of a prejudiced mind. We strive to expand our rings and remove any limitations we may have already placed on them.

Clear mind
After striving comes clarity, but this is a gradual process. It takes sometimes a long time – years or lives – to achieve clarity of mind, but once it is achieved, you are almost one with the “mind which is in Christ,” the clear mind that sees things exactly as they are. A clear mind has direction, a clear goal, and a clear plan to reach that goal.

This appears to be the opposite of a confused mind. The Christ represents the highest in us in many ways. Be careful of limiting our Christ “ring.” This is a good example of a ring we may have limited. Do we think it is associated merely with the bible thumpers, or with the fanatical Jesus freaks? This is one ring we want to make as big as possible. However big our Christ ring is we should double it right now. It will be worth it.

Creative mind
After your mind achieves a state of clarity, it becomes a creative force in the Universe. You create all those art forms that make people healthier, more beautiful, more successful, more righteous, and freer.

The real artist does not entertain you and please your animal instincts by presenting violence and crimes, but through his art he evokes the divine and creative forces from you and challenges you to transcend your level of beingness.

When our mind is clear we are able to communicate with our higher self. We can better express our higher aspect in our art, music, and in every other aspect of life.

Enlightened mind
The enlightened mind is a mind that cooperates with the creative forces in Nature, having a deep understanding about the Purpose and the Plan of the One Who created all that exists. A person who has an enlightened mind can clearly see himself as he is and what he is going to be.

This may seem a bit confusing. After expressing our higher selves through our creative mind we are then able to see that it is not our will which will be done, but a higher will with a higher purpose than ours is working through us and around us. The sooner we realize this the fewer troubles we will create in our lives.

So here we see a small glimpse of where we are heading. So we might ask how clear thinking can be achieved. Here are 16 suggestions offered by Torkom.

1. Try to think from cause and effect and from effect to cause. Say to your mind, “If you think this way, what may happen to me, to my family, my nation, to humanity, and to Nature?” If the effect is not constructive or beneficial, think how you can eliminate or stop the cause.

In terms of our rings we should learn how they relate to each other. Which rings are caused by other rings.

2. Try to think in the interest of the greater whole: your family, nation, humanity, Nature. Use your thinking power to bring good changes and new visions for these units. Your thinking may seem right to you, but you may not have checked it from the viewpoint of the family, the group, the nation, and Nature. In relating your thinking to these greater wholes, you see the exact value of your thoughts.

This is an example of enlarging our rings. Think not just of our own personal desires and interests, but of ever expanding groups of people. By focusing on ourselves too much we are certainly limiting our rings are not able to think clearly.

3. Try to think not only for your physical body but also for your emotions, mind, and soul. You do things that make your physical body happy, but emotionally or mentally you feel painful, or you feel spiritually ashamed and humiliated. Your actions must make your complete being happy and healthy because you are a unit and your thinking must not be partial. Clear thinking has no partiality and does not create cleavages in your whole being.

We are made up not only of our physical body , but also a soul body full of desires, feelings, and sympathies and antipathies, and a spiritual body made up of thoughts, intuitions, and higher aspects. When we focus only on one of these aspects we are not thinking clearly either.

4. Try to think not only for your personal interests but also for your future interests, for the interest of your future lives. For a few days you enjoy things you do, but what about the coming years? How will your actions affect your whole life, or even your future lives Future lives are as real as your future weeks, future months, or future years. You must consider how to be healthy, happy, and creative in future years and lives.

This one is difficult. We prefer instant to delayed gratification. Why be good? Why tell the truth? Where is the payback? We need to take a higher perspective to understand that the payback is in being able to express our higher aspects. We know we feel better when we do what is right.

5. Never think within the boundaries of your habits, prejudices, superstitions, vanity, and ego. If your thinking is controlled by your habits, you will not learn how to think clearly. If your thinking is run by your ego, you will never achieve clear thinking. If your thinking is run by your prejudices, superstitions, and vanity clear thinking will be an unachievable dream for you and you will always be a slave to your habits, prejudices, superstitions, vanity, and ego. This is how a person loses his self.

We have discussed much of this already. Vanity though is when we limit our rings because to enlarge them appears as an affront to our ego. We would have to admit we were wrong to limit our ring. We should not be afraid to tear old rings down and build newer bigger rings.

6. Do not let your thinking be controlled by fear, hatred, jealousy, anger, revenge, greed, and hurt feelings. If you cannot think free of those factors, your thinking will be controlled by them and you will involve yourself with more and more problems and waste your time, money, energy, and health. Clear thinking is only possible when you stand above these seven factors. Most of our wrong decisions and actions are taken under the influence of these seven factors. This is why the world has so many problems in spite of so much knowledge and luxury. People feel happy when they think inspired by their habits, fears, jealousies, anger, revenge, greed, and hurt feelings…but they don’t realize that they are like airline passengers who are eating, drinking, and enjoying themselves when the plane is just about to crash. Some people think that hatred, fear, jealousy, anger, revenge, greed, and hurt feelings are stimulants to our thinking. It is true that they stimulate our thinking, but they lead us in the wrong direction; and sometimes they lead us to destroy whatever we have built or to lose whatever we have gained in the past.

This is pretty complete in itself. Not much more need be said.

7. Before you think, for a moment visualize a joyful or pleasant experience. Joy is a form of light, and it puts your mind in a condition where you think more clearly. Joy enlightens the process of your thinking. Most destructive actions, reactions, and responses are done by unhappy people. Happiness, joy, and bliss make you a constructive force in life. When one is in an unhappy frame of mind, his thoughts run in reverse gears and he seasonally the failure factors, instead of the factors that will lead him to success. A happy mind is a grateful, harmless, controlled, and creative mind. Before you think and make decisions, first feel happy.

This is probably something we would think intuitively but not really thought about. Just by where we are at the moment when we make a decision affects the decision. If we had a bad day at work and our child asks for some candy we are more likely to deny their request..

8. Do not let your racial, national, traditional, or religious background interfere with your clear and righteous thinking. Clear thinking can be can be carried on only at a certain psychologically high altitude. You must free and raise your consciousness above many limitations if you want to think clearly.

We have been taught many things in our life, many of which we tend to believe blindly because we learned it from our parents, priests, and society. As we get older we must realize how much this impact has had in limiting our rings.

9. Never try to deceive yourself or others with your thoughts. If your mind runs in the gears of self-deception, you will never be able to think clearly. Self-deception creates those hindrances which make your thinking contradictory to your own highest good. Self-deception is like covering your inner light with layers and layers of blankets and leading yourself into darkness.

Once we insert deceptions and lies into our rings we create a mess. We know this, but we justify it for many reasons. When truth cannot enter because it conflicts with our lies we create lies into we can see how it is a hindrance to our clear thinking.

10. Never try to fabricate and falsify facts. But people ask, how can you succeed without falsifying and fabricating? Is it possible to save your skin in this world without fabricating and falsifying facts? This is a tragedy. We are taught that it is impossible to be successful with honesty. But the life of the planet is proof that fabrications and falsifications bring success for only a short time while they bring problems, suffering, and loss for the rest of our lives. Can you catch yourself in a moment in which you are just beginning to falsify and fabricate things? If you can find such a moment in your life, you have already initiated yourself onto the path of health, happiness, and success. If you continue to increase such moments in your life, you will soon enter the superhuiman path.

It is freedom after we live in the truth. Remember to live life as if our thoughts and feelings are transparent and can be seen by all. It is by no means easy but that should be a sign of whether we are on the right path.

11. Never decide to take actions or make decisions under the pleasure of flattery, bribery, and showing off, Disobedience of such a rule can be disastrous. People try to bribe you with money, positions, sex, and many other means. Actually, those who flatter or bribe you are those who are using your brain to think through. When you show off, the controlling powers in your mind and those for whom you are showing off. Animals cannot make themselves human because they have no thinking as we do, but man can make himself lower than an animal though the power of his wrong and unclear thinking.

We may not always realize that while we are under such an influence our thinking is severely limited. We can see how this creates the conflicting mind as well.

12. Before you think, ask that the light of your Soul, or the light of Christ or the light of God guide you in your thinking. You will see that when you cultivate clear thinking, you will be exact , true, and factual in your conversation and you will clearly see how people voluntarily mislead themselves through unclear thinking

This is where we need to learn to be quiet and listen to our inner voice. It is able to penetrate a calm clear mind. We must not allow any extraneous thoughts from entering our mind.

13. Check your thoughts by the light of your heart. The heart is not a center of pity but a center which is in harmony with the Cosmic Heart. If your heart says so, obey it. But do not confuse your heart with your desires, glamors, and wishes.

This is a distinction which we must understand. Our desires, glamors, and wishes are not our heart. Heart is higher mind. We can usually tell the difference between the truths that are known in our heart and those that our known in our mind.

14. Let your thoughts be in harmony with the principles of Beauty, Goodness, Righteousness, Joy, and Freedom. If your thoughts do not agree with these five principles, your thoughts are out of order and you are in danger of losing your path.

This one is my favorite. It’s hard to justify thinking about thoughts that do not agree with these principles. Remember a confused mind did not have any principles. These are five principles to consider as part of our foundation.

15. Before you think or make decisions, for a few minutes keep total silence. Silence will help you focus your mind in the clear light.

Why is this so difficult? Many people feel so uncomfortable in silence either among people or within their own life. We prefer to be distracted in life to avoid being alone with our thoughts. Silence helps still our minds and keep our thinking clear.

16. Learn how to meditate. Continuous meditation eventually makes you a free and clear thinker

Meditation allows our minds to be completely open and communication between our higher and lower minds is formed.

We should strive to think a little more clearly every day. It is not easy, but we gain access to our spiritual self by doing do. And when this occurs we have a connection with our higher self and a firm foundation from which to center our consciousness.

In the coming weeks we shall discuss more about the various aspects of our make up. We are composed of spirit, soul, and body. Make sure to have our rings open. We will surely be introducing new ideas and concepts to your current Spirit, Soul, and Body rings. Make sure they are allowed to grow. Stay tuned.

In the last post we introduced Torkom Saraydarian and one of his many books titled

Education as Transformation  Volume I Individual and Cosmos.

Today we will focus on Chapter 2 – The Seven Characteristics of a Spiritual Person.

We recommend reading this book if we are serious about learning more about our spiritual nature.

We provide some excerpts below (in italics) and sometimes some comments in between from me. We should learn to observe how we feel and react while reading them. Does it create hope or despair? Does it seem to promote unity or separateness? Does it resonate with our reasoning, logic, or intuition? Does it make us realize how we create our own limitations in how we choose to view and understand the world around and within us?

Spirituality is related to our beingness and actualization, not to our knowledge. We can belong to any religion, church, group, and fulfill our religious duties, but not be a spiritual person. Spirituality is the practical demonstration of certain characteristics which appear in our life.

The key is that we not only to think about spirituality (knowledge), but need to be spiritual and live spiritually.

A spiritual person is a very normal person. He does not need to use artificial makeup to appear spiritual. We feel and see his spirituality in his manners, in his relationships, and in his solemnity and simplicity. He does not try to impose his image on others by praying in the market place or showing others that he is fasting or helping others. His life has no artificiality, but, rather a radiation of inner richness. He does not stand on the street corner and preach, or knock on doors to bring a “divine message” to people. But wherever he goes he radiates the fragrance of wisdom and beauty.

First it should be understood that words like he and him can be replaced with she and her if preferred without changing the meaning.

It is likely we all know people who fit both types described. With which would we prefer to associate? It is likely that we intuitively sense the difference.

The spiritual person is a very balanced person. He is in harmony with both spiritual and human values; with Higher World and the world of human affairs.

Spirituality is a natural tendency of the human soul to aspire toward perfection, beauty, and light. Spirituality is right relationship with Higher Worlds and higher principles. Spirituality is the blossoming of the seed of the human spirit.

To be spiritual means to grow toward light, beauty, and wisdom.

These words likely resonate with our intuition, but not so much with our reasoning and logic. We will get more out of it after our reasoning abilities expand some more.

Torkom states that a spiritual person has seven characteristics. Before reading on stop and think about how we would characterize a spiritual person. It may be harder than we think as this may be the first time we try to bring out what was more a less an intuitive concept.

1. A spiritual person demonstrates continuous striving toward perfection, and perseverance and stability in his own Dharma.

Dharma is the field of action chosen by your Soul. Once you find it, be steady and stable in it. Some people jump like rabbits from one field to another, with many logical excuses to justify their lack of perseverance and stability.

A spiritual person is a person who always, everywhere and in everything tries to be perfect. In all his thinking, speech, and actions he tries to be accurate, precise, clear, and perfect. This applies to everything he does.

In some ways we never reach perfection and in other ways we are already perfect. The important part is the striving, not the outcome. Dharma is a term like Karma. Karma is associated more with the results of our past lives while Dharma is associated with our present life.

2. A spiritual person has a wholehearted dedication to his labor, without counting hours and days, without holding various expectations in his heart, and without giving up in front of difficulties.

Some of us know we must work eight hours, and still watch the clock as if we were in prison waiting to be freed in eight hours. Labor reaches perfection only when time is forgotten and expectation about the labor no longer exists.

When time and expectations control our actions, we become the slaves of time and reward, and the labor cannot reach perfection – which means we cannot perfect our selves.

Dedication and commitment are two powerful forces which either destroy any obstacle or make the obstacle assist the labor. A spiritual person progresses in spite of difficulties. Difficulties nourish our soul and make us invincible.

Most of us do not associate our labor more from a material perspective than a spiritual perspective. We have a lot to learn about ourselves by the way we do our work, regardless of the task.

3. A spiritual person lives by his conscience, in the light of the teaching, and in the presence of the Hierarchy.

If our conscience is not active, no matter how many Bibles are read we will be the same sneaky people.

Most of us have an active conscience, but it often is overpowered with our thoughts and feelings which have different goals.

The Hierarchy is formed by all those liberated Souls who anxiously watch the members of humanity and try to inspire them with Beauty, Goodness, Righteousness, Joy, and Freedom. To live in the light of the Hierarchy means to think, speak, and act as if thousands of eyes are watching us. If we do we will at least hesitate to lie, cheat, or use malice, slander, and gossip as our weapons. We will withdraw from any plan to harm or hurt people. We will be more dedicated in our labor, and we will to try to live a life that will be pleasant in the eyes of the Great Ones.

4. The spiritual person has an inclusive and expanding approach to all issues of life. This means we are broad minded and tolerant and that we look at all issues of life from many viewpoints. We have no religious, dogmatic, traditional, ideological, racial, and national barriers in his mind. We respect the freedom of religion and the rights of people who are trying to perfect themselves in their own ways.

While these barriers were once an important aspect of our spiritual evolution they are no longer necessary and if we do not transcend these barriers we will be going against the tide of evolution.

We do not jump to hasty and narrow conclusions, but wait until all the evidence is accumulated and analyzed. We do not judge by the measures given to us by our traditions and education, but uses various measures to understand the issues.

The bigger our rings become the more we realize how small they once were. This should make us realize our rings will be viewed as small when look back in the future. Whenever we come across new ideas and perspectives we create new rings with which we will give form to. We need to make them as big as possible at first. Then we begin to accumulate facts and begin to analyze the facts without jumping to conclusions. This is one way we shrink our rings. We should remain open to the truth wherever it leads us.

The spiritual person can belong to any race, tradition, religion, or ideology, but he has a deep understanding of the race, traditions, religion, and ideologies of others. This is because he does not live as a separate human being but as a soul who can identify with all human beings.

All only appears as separate and is actually different aspects of a single unity. The sooner we realize this the easier it will be to proceed along our Path.

It is not our religion that leads us to God; it is our spirituality that takes us to God.

This may cause a variety of reactions. It may seem to not make logical sense to us if we equate spirituality with religion. It may trigger a reaction if we believe that our particular religion is the only path that leads to God. We should avoid using these terms interchangeably.

5. A spiritual person carries out of all his activities, speech, and thoughts in the sphere of the three major laws: the Law of Cause and Effect, the Law of Reincarnation, and the Laws of Syntheses, Attractions, and Economy.

These laws apply to the emotional, mental and higher planes just as the laws of physics or chemistry apply on the physical plane. We will discuss them again in the future.

Remember all that you are and all that happens to you are fruits of our thoughts, words, and actions. We decide our future life conditions by the way we lived our life in the past.

This is the essence of the Law of Cause and Effect.

We economize time, matter, energy, and space. We attract currents of Beauty, Goodness, Righteousness, Joy, and Freedom. We see unity in diversity. We see the one goal in many diversities. We can collect unrelated objects and build a mechanism. We have the power to unify and synthesize.

Can we see how the other laws are summed up in this statement?

6. The spiritual person lives in the realization that he is an immortal spiritual being, charged with the power of unlimited creativity.

We are not attached to the changes in life and to material values at the expense of higher values. Success and failure do not determine our course of action, or our dedication to the service of humanity.

For a mortal being, the only purpose of life is to enjoy life, no matter whether our behavior hurts other people or not. The awareness of immortality gives us the sense of balance, fearlessness, detachment, strength, and courage. All great works are done by those who are not attached to their shells.

7. The spiritual person is aware that his victory is measure by the joy he has in his heart.

What is the joy that fills the heart of the spiritual person, whether we are in storms or sunshine, whether we are beaten or victorious, whether we are healthy or sick? That joy springs from the memories in our heart that we did our best to serve, uplift, transform, and encourage pilgrims on the Path. It is the joy of sharing our love and wisdom. It is the joy of daringness and striving in spite of conditions.

A spiritual person is a normal and up-to-date person. He is not a fanatic or showoff. His spirituality is not artificial, and he does not need to advertise it. His spirituality is known to others by the way he lives, creates, and relates to life in general.

A spiritual person stands against darkness and tries to dispel it with our light. A spiritual person is always enlightened by the light of compassion, without losing our measure of righteousness.

Does this not shed some light on our Path and serve as an inspiration to continue striving?

As our lives unfold we are introduced to various authors along the way. After we read their books we thank whoever introduced us to them, if possible. I have been introduced to several and among them is Torkom Saraydarian. I am almost certain his is not a name most of us would recognize. If we are serious about transforming our lives Torkom’s work is an excellent place to begin.

First a bit about Torkom: an excellent example of a spiritual person.

Torkom Saraydarian (1917-1997) dedicated his entire life to the service of his fellow man. His writings and lectures show his total devotion to the higher principles, values, and laws that are present in all world religions and philosophies. These works represent a synthesis of the best and most beautiful in the sacred culture of the world. His works enrich the foundational thinking on which man can construct his Future.

Torkom Saraydarian was an extraordinary human being. He was known worldwide as a renowned scholar of comparative religions. He was a great teacher, writer, lecturer, and composer of sacred music. His works represent a synthesis of the best and most beautiful in the sacred culture of the world by creating a truly universal approach to spirituality. These works enrich the foundational thinking on which we can construct our future of true global living.

The remarkable achievement in his writings was to synthesize and make comprehensible the huge body of knowledge known as the Ageless Wisdom. At the age of nine, Torkom began to receive education in the Ageless Wisdom under the guidance of his father. At that time, people did not discuss these things in the open, but would disappear to attend meetings – in caves, under the stars – where they would hold ceremonies and dramatizations to reveal the mysteries of the subtle worlds. This early training kindled Torkom’s inner questioning and yearning for truth. He entered a monastery at the age of eighteen.

In 1959 he left Jordan to come to the U.S.A. with his family. He saw people in danger of losing themselves; in need of direction, of guidance. In response to this need, he began inviting them into his home in Van Nuys, California to study and to learn how to lead themselves into more productive, healthy, right living via the principles of the Ageless Wisdom. This was the inception of The Aquarian Educational Group. For the first ten years, he taught classes and lectured in a one-room garage – to “hippies,” doctors, lawyers, philosophers – without a salary except for the small donations left by students. He took in strangers who came to him in crises and helped them to gain real independence. He asked for nothing in return. Despite his total dedication, compassion, and sacrificial nature, he was not “soft” with people. His “straight words” and honesty, grounded in clear observation, were given freely.

Torkom Saraydarian’s books are grounded in the seven principles of Right Living: Beauty, Goodness, Righteousness, Joy, Freedom, Striving, and Sacrificial Service. These seven principles are richly colored threads woven throughout all of his works, and they are the vehicle through which one’s inner divinity can bloom.

“We are an international group in which everyone can take part because it is the principles that give life -
not religions.”
“We didn’t build a religion. We didn’t build hatred between people. We emphasized great principles and these great principles worked.” (From The AEG 35th Anniversary lecture, 7/21/96)

Through the practice of these principles and others, Torkom taught people how to be successful, to have a good self-image, to have healthy, happy relationships; how to be cooperative, to have a life’s purpose, to be more creative; how to be healthy, joyful, responsible, and loving:

“‘Love each other’ is nothing. ‘Love each other’ is now obsolete. ‘Love others more than yourself’ is the new commandment!” (From Healing Through Love, lecture by Torkom, 1/13/93)

Torkom Saraydarian’s books are unlike any others you will ever read. They probe all aspects of our world, both personal and public, showing us the inner spiritual workings and how we can tap the energies around us, both to help ourselves and others. What makes Torkom’s books unique is that he does not feed us the lines we want to hear; he tells us the truth and then helps us navigate down this difficult path. A truly rare find in today’s world!

Among his books is the first of a two volume set titled:

Education as Transformation – Volume I Individual and Cosmos
Let’s just focus on the table of contents at first.

Table of Contents

Part I Foundation
1. The Foundation of Education
2. Seven Characteristics of a Spiritual Person
3. Education in the New Age
4. How to Help People Through Your Absence
5. Meditation and Education
6. Chakras
7. The Mysteries of the Moon
8. The Emotional Nature
9. Equilibrium
10. Equalization
11. Evolution
12. Contentment and Integrity
13. Karma
14. Labor
15. Light and Dark Sparks
16. The Light that Shines Within Us
17. Polarity in Thought
18. Psychic Energy
19. Punctuality
20. Purification
21. Purity of Body
22. The Law of Magnetic Rapport
23. Renunciation
24. How to Develop Right Relations
25. Solemnity
26. Thanksgiving
27. Planetary School of Life

Part II Questions
28. The Mechanics of Questioning
29. The Value of Questioning
30. Kinds of Questions
31. Questioning and the Inner Source
32. Self-questioning
33. Sensitivity
34. Questions on Teen Education

Notice there are two parts: Foundation and Questions. How would we define these terms? What would we consider to be our Foundation? How do view Questions? What value do we place on our ability to question? What kinds of questions do we ask? We can learn a lot about ourselves by the questions we ask.

As we read through the list we should be aware of our reactions to the various terms as we read them? How well do we understand the definitions of many of these terms? Many would admit we do not know what many of the words mean. But we may feel more certain that we know what some of the terms mean.

It is more likely that our own definitions of many of the words are too vague. Take the term “contentment” for example. We may equate it with the term “satisfaction.” However there is a big difference between these two terms. So take a minute to think about the difference between these two terms. Then read on to see how Torkom defines and describes these terms.

Here are some of the ideas Torkom gives in the above mentioned book (in italics) regarding the difference between contentment and satisfaction.

Satisfaction is a physical, emotional, and mental saturation beyond which we do not strive. We feel happy with what we are and with what we have.

Note the term saturation. Like a sponge that is so full of water that it cannot hold any more. We are happy with the water we have.

Contentment is the feeling of fullness physically, emotionally, and mentally, with deep spiritual gratitude, and with a strong spirit of striving to expand ourselves and to hold more light, love, energy, beauty and goodness.

Satisfaction has no striving. It escapes any labor if it feels its happiness is threatened. Contentment is not conditioned by outer conditions and circumstances. The content person can joyfully involve himself in hard labor, pain, and suffering and feel greater spiritual contentment. Contentment is accompanied always with gratitude for the opportunity to serve, to suffer, and to labor.

Satisfaction is based on outer conditions. Contentment is based on an inner flow of joy as a response to acts of sacrifice and lofty thoughts.

The inner flow is not influenced by outer conditions.

Contentment is possible when all our vehicles are aligned and integrated and the electricity of joy passes through them in harmony and rhythm.

We should align our thoughts, feelings, and actions with the inner flow of joy in order to become harmonized.

Contentment comes into existence when we put into our labor all we that we are, when all of our being cooperates with what we do, feel, speak, and think.

All the objects of our desires must be shared by our whole nature in order to bring contentment.

We may now see how vague our definitions can be.

We may feel more certain we know what “Punctuality.” We would be surprised to learn how limited our definition actually is. There are many ways to be punctual that do not involve being on time for appointments. Other words we may have heard, but not given much thought to defining them (like Karma).

Try to guess what each of these chapters might be about. We can learn a lot about the limitations of our own measures of many of these topics. Hopefully we will realize this book can help us overcome our limitations and open us up to new and higher thoughts.

What could the “Mysteries of the Moon” possibly or “Planetary School of Life” contain? They may even scare us away if we are closed minds. We should be open-minded until we have accumulated and analyzed the available information.

Part II is about Questioning. It is likely we give little thought to our ability to question things. We fail to realize how important questioning is in our lives. A few excerpts below are about the differences between religious people and spiritual people. One may be religious, but not spiritual. Another may be spiritual, but not religious. Others may be both spiritual and religious, leaving the rest to be neither spiritual nor religious.

There are millions of religious people in the world, but there are a few spiritual people. To be religious does not necessarily mean to be spiritual. There is a tremendous difference between religious people and spiritual people.

Most religious people are satisfied. They feel that they are already saved, that they are already sitting in the lap of God, that they already have wings to fly, and that they do not need anything.

To be spiritual means to always be progressive in your life. We cannot remain who we are. We must always be progressive – spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically, in our business, in our home, and in our relationships, in everything we do, even in writing a letter. If there is improvement there is progress. Only spiritual people can progress.

A spiritual person questions things that are given to him from the scriptures not because he wants to refuse them or ridicule them but because we want to know if they are facts, realities, figments of imagination, or fairy tales.

The questions of a spiritual person are different from the questions of a religious person.

A spiritual person has no preconceived, accepted stories. He is free to reject or accept anything to his reason, logic, and Intuition.

A religious person has already accepted all that the “book” has said to him. So for him it is blasphemy to ask any questions, whether the stories told him were true or fabrications. But in the meantime he does not reject the beliefs of other people, as long as their beliefs help them improve their own or others’ lives.

A spiritual person feels free to ask questions, and his intention is to find the truth – real, factual, objective truth.

We shall also get more into the benefits of questioning and some other chapters from this book in the future.

If we can’t wait the book is available. Even if we can wait this book is worth the investment of time and money.

We at Divine Approach will introduce more of these less known authors whose books focus on our complete nature, especially our spiritual nature. Their books will expand our consciousness and bring much enlightenment to our lives. We only recommend authors whose books we have actually read. There are certainly many other authors of which we are not currently aware. We will refrain from recommending any of them until we have read at least one of their books.

Many of us are realizing we live more than one life. We have our external life where we earn our living, raise our families, and focus on earthly desires. We also have our internal spiritual life where we focus on building our character, expanding our consciousness, and getting in touch with our higher self.

We strive to merge these two together. Little by little we bring these two lives closer and closer hoping to eventually merge them into one integrated life fully expressing our spiritual nature. This is a natural process as we tend to focus more on our spiritual life as we get older. If we only compared the percentage of time we focused on our spiritual life to the percentage of time we spent focused on our material life we would be missing the point. Going to church on Sundays to be spiritual and then returning to our material world on Monday is not the goal. Our goal is also to increase the percentage of our material life that is infused with our spiritual life.

Little by little we try to curb certain aspects of our external life which do not serve our spiritual purpose. Remember we need a purpose, plan, and a way to manifest it in the outer world. We begin to increase more spiritually inspired activities.

We should try to get the purely materialistic desires out of our system as soon as possible. Don’t dawdle with them. Do it and be done with it. When we get them out of our system we can replace them with higher more purpose driven desires. It may be the case that many of our activities in the outer world still appear the same to an outside observer, however we notice our spiritual focus and purpose has been elevated. Eventually we will no longer be attracted to new activities.

We will reach a point in our lives when the pursuit of purely materialistic desires is no longer as satisfying as it once was. Buddha warned us.

We must be aware that our desires are reflected and manifest in the outer world as the people in our lives, the possessions we own, the food we eat, and the choices we make. As we elevate our desires our outer lives will reflect this change. Do not expect the change to occur immediately. Where we are at today did not happen immediately either. This is the first day of the rest of our spiritual life. We should be willing to wait for the more elevated the desires the more tempering is needed to produce such external changes. The wait makes us stronger and the ultimate results are certainly worth the wait.

We need to take a thorough inventory of our thoughts, our desires, our plans, and most importantly our purpose. What parts have we outgrown? What parts are mere distractions keeping us from pursuing anything meaningful? After we decide which parts we can discard we should stop and take a rest before hastily replacing them. Start to listen to what our higher self might desire. What might our purpose be? How might we better align our desires with what is best for all? How can we begin to get in touch with our spiritual nature?

The more we learn about our higher nature and latent powers within us the easier it will be to let go of many of our sensual desires. The better we know ourselves and our role in the human family and even in the universe the easier it will be to focus our energies, control out thoughts and feelings, and develop our latent powers.

At the same time we try to infuse more of our higher self into our external world – which includes our lower self. We do this by adding love to all that we do. We do this by taking the selfishness out of our motivations. We focus on what’s good for all of us not just a few of us. We look for the good in others regardless of their current limitations. We do our work to the best of our ability regardless how mundane the task.

If our work does not fulfill us spiritually we must begin to change our work. That is not always immediately possible, so we begin by learning from our past and begin to build our future. This process may take much longer than we hope and may take a different path than we expect. We start by understanding how we arrived to where we are today. How much was under our control, how much controlled by external forces, how much by the ignorance of youth. How much was determined by our own personal desires, how much by desires imposed on us by family, friends, country, or church?

How much may help us in our future? How much have we learned about what we no longer desire? What has changed and what has stayed the same? What have we learned about ourselves? What obstacles did we create, which did we overcome? Did we have inner conflicts between what our higher self aspired and what our lower self demanded? What would we do over? Why?

We should remember that nothing happens by accident. Maybe we reach our low point in the valley and our distaste for staying in this condition serves as a springboard to begin our ascent. Perhaps our life experiences have balanced some karmic debt and we are just now able to move forward and produce a future full of positive karma. While our lives may seem to be a path of unrelated events, it may be going according to the plan made by our higher self. We just can’t see it because we focus upon the negatives and view it from a purely external perspective.

There is something to be learned from every single experience of our life. We need to assimilate all we have learned and continue to put our knowledge into larger contexts. Notice how each day the choices we make and the way we view the world determines how our tomorrows will be. What we avoid today is still there tomorrow. We wake up each morning to our life exactly the way we left it.

By looking backwards we learn to look forwards. We realize we will again appear ignorant to our future self. What advice would we get? Our higher self is nothing but our future self when our higher self is fully expressed.

Change starts in the present, but we do not change merely for the sake of change. We must be more deliberate. We must discriminate and understand the relationship between our inner changes and the outer affects. Start slowly and learn to become more objective. Think of how clearly we see the causes and effects in the lives of others, or the strengths and the weaknesses in others, but not in our own lives or our own strengths and weaknesses.

We should be objective and honest. The truth will become more clear. We will begin to hear our higher self attempt to communicate with us. We need to get out of our own way to hear. We should tell our lower mind and feelings that they are to remain silent and listen before starting their incessant demands once again.

Imagine a world where we could not hide our true feelings, thoughts, and motives from each other. How different would we be? Would we not want to have each of them be as beautiful as possible?

Write down the future and our role in it. Use our imagination. Write down our spiritual purpose, our spiritual plan, and the material tools we can bring to manifest it. Imagination is a very important part of our evolution. If desire and imagine are strong enough the plan will be devised and the tools will be crafted to manifest it.

Have fun, think wisely, and be loving.