Love | Karma | Pain | Release
“He who learns but does not think, is lost!
He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger” –Confucius
Love is what makes this world work. Without it, we would fall apart. The more we open to it, the more we are. We open to love by allowing ourselves to feel pain. If I feel pain over a friend’s or loved one’s departure, is it rooted in love or confused with love? Where is the love in that if I feel the pain of emptiness? If I am suffering the pain of ridicule, lambasting, and shame, where does my suffering to all this open me to love? And, if I feel the pain of being less than I want to be, what does love have to do with that?
Asking the question is a perfect start. Whatever we allow and accept becomes glued to us. If anything breaks free from that glue, we tend to replace it because we are magnets—we draw things to ourselves and allow what we draw to stick. They stick to us; they stick to each other. What adheres to us starves or feeds our potential. What is sticking to you?
Pain always wants to stick to us, and then the victim comes along and sticks to the pain. Anger loves pain and victim and attaches to the victim, sticking to the pain. Pain and victim and anger and revenge have found homes on many of us, starving our potential.
We want to attract the right things to us. Interestingly, our conscious mind naturally fears not being right. Subconsciously or emotionally, we naturally fear not being accepted. We naturally fear physical and emotional pain.
If love sticks to us, it is because love uniquely sticks to love. Power sticks to love, and force sticks to fear. If we attract other things like control, self-interest, fear, hate, jealousy, ownership, and the like, we feel pain as we go through life’s situations. The pain helps us understand what is sticking to us.
We need to recognize the pain and understand it. There are ways of doing this, but it starts with a decision to change, a decision with no grey areas, a pure black or white decision. So, write that decision with black ink on white paper so we can see it.
I am changing!
I am evolving!
The first step is recognizing that pain is our signal that we need to change something. We might still need to decide what to change, but we do know that our next step is to start exploring.
We might already consciously know what we need to do or think differently or we may need our subconscious minds to help us figure it out. There is so much power in our subconscious minds where there is unlimited information about us.
Our subconscious minds can tell us and show us what is sticking to us, and we can release what is not serving our highest good once we have been shown. Hypnosis can be used to help us explore our subconscious minds. A separate Chapter is devoted to hypnosis.
Some things stick to us that dog us, and we often do not even realize it. We have learned to live with the pain, and we no longer recognize it as pain; we get used to it, yet we are not happy, not as happy as we could be, for it is there lying hidden, perhaps sticking to something several layers away from our core magnet.
While I am sure that we determine what sticks to us by what we think and do, how we deal with situations we encounter are influenced by what sticks to us. It is like we are in a giant lab, and we are the rats. The tester wants to know what will stick to us and what will not, and in what situations will that hold.
Imagine that an energy form is introduced to our magnet, and we begin to react. One of us lab rats will notice the energy as if it were a light rain over the ocean that will soon evaporate and return to the tester. Another of us lab rats will feel that energy hang on us like a storm digging into and prying up the ocean, causing all sorts of havoc. And, there are lab rats that react in all ways in between.
We create our storms, and until we can figure out what we are doing that makes these storms, we continue to be tested upon, or said in another way, the more the System presents us with situations that allow us to figure out what we are doing wrong. We may see hail, lightning, and thunder if we overlook the cloudy day.
We can complain about being in this lab or participate in the science of reinventing ourselves. If it is a pain that we are experiencing, let’s look at it as a clue to finding our highest good.
Let’s return to the pain, victim, anger, and revenge circle that stick to some of us. The concept of karma would suggest that we have dues to pay. What goes around comes around; do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Philosophically, the East agrees with the West about payback; at least, they have ways of saying the same thing. So, for every time we were a victim or a savage, do we have an equal number of situations where there is payback?
Or is bad karma, not so much payback but self-induced pain from making repeated bad decisions derived from habit and instinct embedded in our subconscious minds and the cells of our bodies that cause us to be victims and savages again? Could our behavior be so strong in our subconscious that we cannot appreciate the perspective of someone different from ours? And do we repeat over and over again the pain until we find a way to release it?
Likewise, for good karma, the more we are loving souls providing service to others, the harder it is for us to make bad decisions and the less pain we have. But let’s face it, as long as we are in the body, we have not evolved to the point where we have subconsciously accepted that we are infinite, even if we have consciously done so, and we decay. (A Hindu concept expressed by Paramahansa Yogananda)
There are over 6 billion people/souls on Earth. They have been born into many different situations and conditions. Some of our souls are in bodies born into wealthy and perhaps very materialistic families, while others are born into poor but possibly spiritual families and everything in between. Some of our souls are in bodies born healthy, and some are born weak and deformed and everything in between. Some of our souls are in bodies born in a land of opportunity and hope, and others are born in the land of repression and famine and everything in between. Why?
Could there be a system that puts us where we can add to our subconscious minds a little more up when it is dominated with down, a little more support when it needs a little boost, and a little humility when it needs perspective? That does not sound like karma payback. That sounds like in a free-will planet, there is a system that helps us clean our magnets. If this were true, shouldn’t we spend more time finding out what might be in our closets and cleaning out what does not serve our highest good? Or do we want to let the System put us in situations that help us get fed up with our behaviors and sink to the low point if necessary so that the only direction we can go is up?
Why is it so essential to clean our subconscious? Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud tell us the contents of the subconscious perpetually seep into conscious awareness. Eventually, they realized that when rage, lust, revenge, etc., are denied access to the civilized conscious mind, they do not disappear but continue to live out an independent psychic existence in the subconscious. There, they drain away energy from the aware System, causing depression, anxiety, neurosis, phobias, etc., or else they erupt as physical symptoms, irrational moods, or slips of the tongue.
Both Jung and Freud concurred on this fundamental picture of the human psyche: that each of us carries within us a whole other world, shadowy and fantastic, to be sure, but teemingly alive with inner figures, melodramas, grievances, and fears, that are constantly exerting their influence over our every word and deed.
So, while it feels that we have a clean conscious mind, a civilized conscious mind, that mind can be corrupted just like data on a computer, and this usually becomes visible under stress. A sports car might handle nicely until it is pushed to its limits and spins out. Occasionally, we may get out of control and right back in control.
Sometimes, we act out because of what is seeping into our conscious minds that is still a part of our subconscious minds. And, if we find ourselves in more stressful situations, we might see that our civilized conscious minds do not stay civilized as whatever is in our subconscious mind begins to flow instead of seep. When that happens, we add more dirt to our closets. We must clean our closets while we are in our civilized conscious minds. As the advertisement goes, what’s in your wallet (closet)?
There are ways to clean our closets. Be warned, though, from this quote from Edgar Cayce: “…There are no individuals who haven’t at some time been warned as respecting that that may arise in their daily or physical existence! Have they heeded? Do they heed that as may be given as advice? No! It must be experienced!”
If we want to be better friends, spouses, supervisors, parents, leaders, managers, artists, or whatever we want to be, we need to look inward and clean our closets before we can truly reach our potential. Then, what creeps into our conscious minds from our subconscious minds nourishes our potential instead of starving it.
Norman Vincent Peale declared, “Change your thoughts, and you change your world.” Caroline Myss, medical intuitive, states, “Every choice we make, every thought and feeling we have, is an act of power that has biological, environmental, social, personal and global consequences.” Wayne Dyer states, “We are responsible for everything in our lives, including whether the chemistry in our body works or doesn’t work.”
Norman Vincent Peale, Caroline Myss, and Wayne Dyer have written that our choices, thoughts, and feelings are an act of power and that we continue to be responsible and are in control of our health. What we choose to say and think today creates our tomorrow.
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity says matter and energy are interchangeable. Mass is nothing but a form of energy. Matter is slowed down or crystallized energy. Our bodies are energy.
Love and fear are two core emotions; all others can be called sub-emotions. When we fill our cells, our entire being, our magnets, and our closets with love, we automatically approve of ourselves and believe in the divine power to provide for us. Then fear cannot take our peace nor prevent joy from filling our lives. The more love we accumulate on our magnets, the harder it will be for illness and uncomfortable experiences to find a place to stick.
The material consciousness must move toward our spiritual consciousness to have peace within oneself. When the gap is closed, when the material consciousness becomes one with the soul consciousness, our closets stop collecting clutter. We can do this by using our free will. Our free will is often buried in our habits and instincts, which can perpetuate and justify our existence in the material consciousness. If our deeds and thoughts are negative, it will not be until our will, if ever, is strong enough to recognize them as bad habits or behavior and stop.
Eventually, we are all going to evolve—some faster than others—some willingly—some kicking and screaming, but evolve, we will. For those bodies and minds that are hooked on drugs, alcohol, sex, power, greed, ego, hate, and fear or are starving, wet, cold, diseased—evolving is most difficult. Just surviving another day is the challenge. So we have a world where people are advancing spiritually and pulling others up and declining spiritually and pulling others down.
If we choose to be ruled by our choice rather than habit, every such choice is liberating. Each broadens our understanding and strengthens our willpower and ability to live in harmony with ourselves and others.
Each time we refuse to give in to some temptation against our highest good, we resurrect our original soul consciousness from controlling the desire-bound body and mind and closing the gap correctly. Whenever we resist the inclination to retaliate when misunderstood or set aside a personal desire to benefit someone else, we reach beyond the confines of self toward our true soul consciousness and correctly close the gap.
With all the free will, absent-minded habits, and instincts running around this planet, paying attention to material aspects of life, we would all have to live with our gaps. Let’s look at that pain thing again. Pain has been made available to us to help us see greater wisdom and joy outside the material world. If we don’t realize a spiritual world exists, and we find ways to cope with the material world, we go along with the motto that if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.
Many of us do not recognize the roots of our pain, but we see the material results and wonder, why not me, or why them? For those who cannot connect the misfortune to their or others’ situations, the System is invisible.
So what is the System?
It is to love God, eschew evil, and love thy neighbor as thyself.
We have all heard the phrase: The truth shall set you free. But free of what–Of enforcement? Yes, but better put would be: from our subconscious minds and primitive parts of our brains.
Our original soul consciousnesses want to give charity to all, love to all, find fault with none, be patient with all, showing brotherly love and brotherly kindness. Doing these in thought, purpose, and intent will set us free from the creep from our subconscious minds—from the negative things that would cling to our magnets, free from the clutter that otherwise would collect in our closets.
Is there order in our life, or is there chaos? Is there order in this world, or is there chaos? Is there some chaos? Compliance with our original soul consciousnesses brings order to our lives and the world. Being out of compliance, disregarding or not recognizing our soul-conscious desires, brings chaos and destructive forces into our lives.
If our lives are disturbing, if we have sad hearts or have pain in our bodies, we are creating our gaps or living with the gap-created cluttered closets, perhaps from prior lives or other dimensions that have yet to be fully recognized or corrected.
We can all do better, and we are blessed when we, let’s repeat this, get a friendly nudge or even a hard poke. Is it not better to recognize the social nudges and act upon them rather than requiring the hard pokes to make changes in our thinking, purpose, and intent? We should not think of the body as a haphazard machine or that things that happen to us are chance. It is all part of living with gaps or having allowed them to close by moving our original soul consciousness toward our material consciousness!
What is the power behind our thinking, purpose, and intent? Let’s put it this way: according to Edgar Cayce, “That which comes or begins first is conceived in spirit, grows in the mental, manifests in the material.” We must develop our original spiritual consciousness and use it.
If something will come about materially, let’s let it be from the seed of original spiritual consciousness. We must explore our spiritual consciousness if we prefer to avoid our current material situations. We can ask ourselves why, but only if we ask what this nudge or situation I find myself in might be all about. If we are to have more noble things come our way, not that we have all the wisdom needed to discern which things are the most noble, we need to be introspective and wake up.
When we develop our intuition, we allow ourselves to be guided through our spiritual consciousness. We must distinguish intuition derived through spiritual guidance from habit derived through our subconscious mind. If we have yet to take care of what we have chosen to do and think about consciously, our intuition isn’t intuition; instead, it is habit and instinct and, as such, could guide us wrong. Yogananda, Jung, Freud, and others have told us: “Once repeated thoughts and deeds stick in our subconscious mind, we might have to live with them repeatedly and compulsively as a habit or instinct.”
We need to read. We need to learn. We need to allow ourselves to open to the spiritual world not defined by our five senses. Start by reading without judgment. Allow new ideas to sit off to the side until we are ready to be open to them, to explore them with a more evolved mind that evolves through persistence and openness and stagnates with quick judgments.
When we sincerely seek to be led by our spiritual consciousness and are willing to be led by our souls, we are guided and begin to notice our guidance. In receiving this guidance, we must concentrate and attune ourselves to those spiritual forces.
We still have others because we might only use one consciousness, our material consciousness. We gain insight and feel into these multiple planes as we open to those various spheres of understanding. Once we have access to a new plane, we will use it and attain the next plane of evolvement, potential, and consciousness. Use it or lose it.
We have all had restless moments where we felt we needed to get out and do something. Some will say they need a good stiff drink or a double cheeseburger, fries, and a shake during these times. Some may feel the urge to run or brisk walk, work out, or climb a rock. Some might experience anxiety for the first time and be scared by it. There is a good chance we are reacting to the gap. For those who feel anxious, don’t just sit there and be frightened; start doing some yogi breathing.
There are two gap triggers. If we are moving along with our evolvement and something has entered into our lives that we have reacted to in a way that our spirit consciousness truly wanted to handle differently, we get a gap trigger. Also, we get a gap trigger when we make a significant jump in our evolvement, and our spirit consciousness more consistently directs our lives and reactions to events, people, and circumstances. We will always be temporarily out of our comfort zone when we change, for the good or the bad.
Where do we begin in our commitment to regain our original spiritual consciousness? We start by reading, and we spend time in nature. When we can escape to the peaceful quiet of beautiful nature, we are where the Spirit of Creation emanates. It is in nature that we need to attune our minds to the divine that is within us all.