Author: spiritualgrowthadventure

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“Know Thyself” means what?

An ancient axiom of spirituality was “Know Thyself”.

Seems obvious and essential, plus profound and a worthy soundbite which is and was always dramatic enough to make an impression. Also, in the days of carving words into stone, it didn’t take long to carve this phrase.

It is the kind of phrase that can mean whatever you want it to mean, and the limit on it is the questions you know that you can ask, and the issues you know about. Also, there can be a point to knowing yourself. But what “to know” depends on where you are at in your life.

For some people it is enough for them to know what kinds of friends they like, what people they like to follow on social media, the music they like, the fast food they like and don’t like, the political views they like (and don’t like) etc. Life is such for these people that they haven’t had to consider other issues ( a big yet), including more life and death type issues; the kind that force people to re-prioritize their lives.

People who set up businesses, if they write a business plan, often do a SWOT: Lists of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. All useful stuff in a business context, and which can helpfully spill out into everyday life.

There are jobs where making good decisions and taking the right actions can be critical. For instance surgeons often have to consider how they make decisions and why they make the decisions they do. If they make mistakes they have to learn from them. So surgeons have to learn and reflect on how they make decisions, and know this about themselves.

Even in sport, even though the outcomes can be less crucial, sports psychologists will help elite sports people get to know their thinking processes and decision making, so that they make better choices. This is soemthing that can be useful in other aspects of life. It is something that many people would find helpful.

Part of knowing thyself in an elite sports context, and also in high pressure situations is knowing how you cope in an extremely stressful situation, on your own and with others in a team. In some walks of life this can prove invaluable. For instance, if someone works in an emergency department in a hospital, or as a paramedic, or when helping out in a birth, or in sea rescue, and so on. All a bit different to sitting there in meditation and just trying not to think.

“Knowing thyself” can mean exploring your preferences more deeply to get to your values. You can find what really, deeply you think and feel, and particularly feel what is important. Then explore why and get down to the issues and articulate them. Taking the time to do this is powerful. But doing this won’t make you popular because it means that you will know your own mind, and that you won’t necessarily end up following the herd from one emotionally highly charged issue to the next, and the angry self-righteous will dislike you. But if you know what’s important to you, you probably won’t care about them trying to make out that (in their opinion) you are “wrong”, as you will know in your own mind you are right.

Issues and morals are an odd thing though. Even though they seem important right now, in years to come they will all change, and what was important will seem really unneccessary.

For myself, and I know others who use their third eyes, we feel into or look at issues with our third eyes. In this way it is possible to evaluate and energetically analyse an issue, or someone’s beliefs, or their opinions on an issue. In this way it is possible to sense what issue or belief or opinion is worth paying attention to, and what to disregard, and in a healing way, what issue needs some healing energy to deal with any twists or embedded negative energy. This approach is unconventional, and definitely means not following the herd, but doing what seems right from an energy point of view.

Knowing yourself in a spiritual context. That can mean a number of things depending on where you are at, and what feels right to you at whatever point you are on your spiritual journey. It might be what has been written about above is what is required.

It could mean knowing that from a spiritual and energetic point of view that you are a soul that is immortal, which reincarnates time and time again into lifetimes, each time with a new body and new personality, with new karma just right for that lifetime. That is something pretty big to know about.

In this context it helps to know that you as a soul came from God, from the Divine, into creation. So from the Light, to the relative darkness. Now why would you have done that? Why go through all the pain and suffering, all the emotion, and experience love and joy in all its forms? Why?

Well after a great deal of lives, and all that experience and learning you will know why, because God, who is Infinite in anycase, isn’t experienced in books and the Infinite can’t be learnt about intellectually. God is learnt about by living and experiencing what Love isn’t and what Love is. There is much more to this but why spoil the ending to your story when you can find out for yourself? Live, and Love.

In another spiritual context, knowing yourself can mean knowing you are a soul in a physical body, inside an etheric body, inside an emotional/astral body, inside a mental body, and that you are inside your aura, which has an outer coating as a protection. Inside all these bodies there are chakras or energy centres with different qualities and functions, though all of them let in energy, do something to that energy, and radiate or send out energy of different qualities. Many people still think there are seven main chakras, but times have moved on and there is change all around in the world, as there is change in people’s energy systems. So there are more chakras. You might notice these, or might not. Don’t worry if not. As a general rule, it is always good to focus on and meditate on the heart centre, as everything else gets affected by this. It is still good to learn how to clear and protect the centres from third eye down, and the other centres will make themselves apparent as and when. The heart centre is where it is at, spiritually.

In yet another spiritual context, it helps to think of things in terms of spirit, which can be thought of as an energy that pushes, influences and motivates in a particular way. Spirit can also be thought of as a flavour. You are a collection of spirits. So if you want to know yourself, you can think of yourself as a combination of the spirit you incarnated in with, a spirit from your father, a spirit from your mother, a spirit from your family, a spirit from the area you were born in, and a spirit from your country of birth. Then overlaid over these core spirits are the spirits you gather according to how you live, how you were treated when you were a child, what you experienced, from the things you are involved in and interested in, from the people you associate with and who you think are important, from your job if you are working…

Even moods and habitual thoughts can be thought of as spirit. So each lifetime, we are a veritable zoo of spirits, or perhaps an orchestra. Now is that orchestra producing a symphony or a cacophony or something inbetween? You can think of spirituality as knowing what spirits are there in your system, and getting rid of those you don’t want, and collecting up the spirits you do want (divine spirit anyone?) like some living version of a computer game where you can gain rewards and move onto the next level (or drop back to the start as in the spiritual game of snakes and ladders).

Each lifetime, we start over with another hotchpotch of spirits for the experiences we require, but with our intrinsic spirit having grown a bit.

“Know Thyself” in a spiritual context can mean knowing what we think. There is a spiritual saying that goes “energy follows thought”. Some people believe that we create our reality with our thoughts. This is only partially true as anyone who believed this notion and yet still found their house burnt down in fires, or totally destroyed or flooded in storms, or still ended up dying from some illness would have found out to their dismay. That’s it put bluntly. Thoughts have some influence, but usually karma wins out, as does the will of more powerful beings. If thinking is aligned with karma, any positive outcomes are usually attributed by the proud, happy person to their positive thinking. There are times though, when the karma is of the opportunistic type, where it can go positive or negative. Here, a person’s thoughts and their ability to focus and concentrate on putting out that thought can make something out of an opportunity. Also, some people know about spiritual matters such as the Law of Love, the Law of Faith, and what to do, what to think and what to avoid thinking, and how to take physical actions to bring about what they see as the most loving outcome. So what do you think about yourself? What would be the best to think of yourself? What do you think of others (what attitude do you have towards them)? As this affects the energy you radiate. Many thoughts need exploring as they are tucked away in the subconscious, and are very much worth knowing about. What are your thoughts about relationships? About your mother? About your father? About their relationship? (These we use as models in our own relationships.) What do you think about health? What do you think about money? About work? About success? About the future? About God? And so on. Sometimes our old thoughts don’t help us, and happily we can take on board new ones and focus on thinking those instead. Some thoughts we hold can be fairly neutral, emotionally. But when we think, we feel, we generate emotional energy. Some old thoughts and issues can have a lot of emotion bound up with them. Before we can realistically adopt new thoughts, we have to deal with the emotional energy. It is really worth exploring how to use forgiveness in this case. Sometimes with painful issues therapy of some sort is very helpful.

This is by no means a definitive exploration of “Know Thyself”, as there is more, as we all shall find out in due course.

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Spiritual energy flowing in equal CHANGE!

Humanity has to change so change happens to it, as change happens in everything else, too. The Old is done away with and the New, more conscious, more developed, emerges.

When karma is sped up, change for humanity can be a bit bumpy when people are on the wrong timeline. Fine, when people are on the right timeline. (There are plenty of posts on this site about timelines and about using intuition to get on the best timeline for anyone who wants to know.)

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Using Intuition on Social Media, and News

We can use intuition in simple quick ways in everyday life. For most people that can include social media and news on the internet, so that in the words of an old Who song, “we don’t get fooled again”. The simple technique involves using your imagination to imagine a post or news as flowers. Just get a quick image, and go with that. In this way there is no over thinking. if you prefer cars to flowers, use cars, or whatever type of object you like. Sometimes I like to imagine things as sounds played by a band or orchestra. It’s fun, but there is serious intent behind it.

Of course if you want to analyse the data further and really dig into it, that is possible too.

So if you want to develop your third eye and intuition further, you can. You can find out about strengthening your chakra system and aura and get the chakras to work together powerfully. You can learn how to work with thoughtforms and how to psychometrise posts, news, people, situations and things. If you are in business, being able to choose between different opportunities, and different possible timelines for short, medium, and longterm benefits is great.

There are techniques and information that can be acquired from the book, “Meditation: Opening Doorways On A New Reality” (See about the books).

There are articles and meditations on this blog you might be interested in looking at if you want to know more about intuition, third eye and clairvoyance, and more. It’s all basically about using your chakras, astral and mental body in the way they can be used, along with a guide or guides (make sure to have a good quality one as these are available).

For improving your skill at using your intuition. https://spiritualgrowthadventure.com/2018/04/22/a-very-important-skill-psychometrising/

Background info to what it’s all about. https://spiritualgrowthadventure.com/2015/03/18/the-heart-of-being-clairvoyant-or-psychic/

Like going to the spiritual gym for your third eye, 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3…. https://spiritualgrowthadventure.com/2015/04/13/purple-light-meditation-and-changing-the-third-eye-chakra/

Very helpful to be able to close up your third eye when you want a rest, and to block out negativity https://spiritualgrowthadventure.com/2017/10/17/closing-doorways-and-buttoning-up-meditation/

Affects all your system and helps to tune your intuition upwards to good quality info (and most useful in avoiding the grot). https://spiritualgrowthadventure.com/2016/06/16/an-essential-meditation-on-the-heart/

Cleaning up your energy before hand helps your system, as does cleaning up any unwanted energies afterwards as this can make a big difference to your day or night https://spiritualgrowthadventure.com/2015/12/15/cleaning-up-your-energy-2/

For FAQs about meditation, click here.

If you want to develop your intuition, try the online Intuition Program:

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Kinds of Karma

Souls incarnate on this Earth, in Creation, and as they go through Life through many lifetimes, they create karma, experience karma and balance karma. There are different kinds of karma. The karma molds the experiences they have and what the soul in physical form does.

Souls in physical bodies create karma all the time. Even just by being, such as when people are breathing, and standing still, as well as by thinking and doing things.

Consider humans, not only can they create, and balance and go through karma individually, they can do this as a family, for instance eating a meal, or going someplace.

People can create and go through karma as a group, for instance a group of fans watching sports match or a music concert, a group of people demonstrating, working for an organisation, and investing in a certain stock.

Then there is regional karma where something is experienced or done by an entire population of a region. One example would be New York and the recent pandemic.

There is national level karma that is created by a nation and experienced by a nation. For instance, one nation goes to war against another nation, a nation experiences having a political leader, or having sanctions applied against them, or they all (or most) have a day off work in a nationwide holiday.

There is global karma where the entire planet creates karma, such as by creating pollution, and experiences karma as a planet, such as experiencing a global pandemic, or rising sea levels.

So there is individual, family, group, regional, national and global karma. There is even solar system karma. For instance, the solar system may experience cosmic rays from a quasar, or there is an increase in solar activity. There is even galactic karma that applies to a whole galaxy. There are some galaxies that are crashing into each other, for example.

For each of the above there is positive karma, which is experienced as something happy and pleasant. There is negative karma which tends to be experienced as something unpleasant or horrible, but when it is gone into in detail, it always turns out to be something that is balancing out another experience, or balancing out negative energy from a previous life or lives.

Then there is opportunistic karma that can go either positively or negatively, depending on choices perceived, positive or negative attitude, and decisions made.

We are not only physical beings, but we have an astral body which relates to emotions, and we have a mental body, which relates to thoughts. So through what we do, feel and think, we have physical level karma, astral level karma and mental level karma. And these are positive, negative and opportunistic.

In our lives, we balance out karma from the past, sometimes from distant past lives, and we usually create karma, which gets carried over to be balanced in some future lifetime. As mentioned in another article, the karma gives us something to experience and learn from at soul level, and so develop in consciousness over many lifetimes.

For more on karma, try these:

About karma and mental health

About karma and gender and sexuality

About karma and relationships

About how karma and the law of Opposites helps you grow

Your past lives, karma and spirituality

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Finding a good spiritual teacher to help you grow

Learning about spirituality is different for everyone, depending on what they as individuals need to experience for their spiritual growth. Who we learn from can make a big difference.

A stage that lasted a few years for me was to go and learn some basic aspects of therapy and spirituality. Being part of a group that was friendly, positive, supportive and loving was great, and it was enjoyable. Plus I found it did me a lot of good as I changed and felt a lot happier about myself and life. After a year or so I became involved in helping to make sure the workshops and events ran smoothly. I enjoyed that to very much.

After a while though, the learning slowed. The spiritual information that was being taught was the same all the time. One month was very much like another. I gradually became restless and my interest dropped off.

The people in the organisation who did the teaching were still happy and enthusiastic about what they were teaching. The spiritual stuff they believed and taught was enough for them, and gave them a view of the world that worked as far as they were concerned. But I wanted more. I had some friends who were becoming less happy about what was being taught because they also wanted more. One friend commented that what we had learnt in the organisation was kindergarten level spirituality, that it was time to leave, and learn more at a higher level.

With smiles the organisation tried to persuade us to stay. When we still said no, they were unfriendly towards us, as we no longer wanted to give importance to what they considered important. In a way it was like rejecting them because we rejected a key part of their identity. It wasn’t meant as that, we just wanted to move on to finding out about more aspects of spirituality. And I was very grateful for what I had learnt and how they had helped me change.

One thing I realised though was the people in the organisation I had left were satisfied with what they did and what they knew, but they had stopped asking questions, stopped learning, and stopped growing. They were happy and successful in their comfort zone, and stayed in it.

Myself and the others found some other sources of information and other teachers and learnt about spirituality, life and ourselves at another level. We found some teachers who like us kept on learning and developing, and this meant we were learning new things all the time, and being given the opportunity to change and grow as people.

I realised that some people who are therapists, workshop leaders, authors or “spiritual leaders” don’t learn and don’t change, and come out with the same old, same old. Which is fine for those people who want to learn a bit, and then stay in that comfortable place.

Then there are therapists, workshop leaders, authors and “spiritual leaders” who do keep learning and growing spiritually. These people are great for spiritual adventurers who want to keep learning and growing, learning something new, and then replacing it with something newer, again and again, as there is always More. We live in a time when wave after wave of spiritual energy comes in to transform humanity, the world and creation. Each wave of energy brings a new level of knowledge to match how humanity keeps changing with that energy. Each wave brings a new level of truth to supercede the old (think of layers of an onion as an analogy if you like). So there is continual change and growth. And this will keep happening.

Keeping with the same old teacher who teaches the same old stuff is like treading water in a becalmed sea. Learning with a teacher who keeps learning is like surfing an ocean wave that changes shape and demands you go with it.

I know what kind of learning I like.

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About Death

Death is a massive topic. We have all died countless times, and there is usually huge fear in people about dying. There is a lot of healing and change to occur so that we even begin to see death as a state to go through onto the next life.

Death happens this way:

The soul usually withdraws its energy and awareness from the lifeform as it is time to move onto the next part of the journey. Sometimes the physical elemental in the physical body fights this, and holds onto the energy. Usually the heart stops and the centres close down and the soul leaves the physical body.

Before death, the third eye centre can be seen to close down in preparation. The start of this closing down can be days before. The timing is based on karma. With karma, there are three kinds. There is positive, negative and opportunistic karma. With the opportunistic karma, events can go either way; negative or positive. So some deaths are opportunistic rather than the other kinds of karma. The third eye will show the probability of death, and can reopen if the opportunistic event has gone positive. Close shaves can be like this. A death can be positive karma, as the person has fulfilled all of their karma for that lifetime, and the soul withdraws its energy so the spirit of the person can have a deserved rest on the inner planes, an esoteric cup of tea, a review of events in that lifetime, and a meet up with old friends. They then can reincarnate into their next lifetime with a new set of karma to work through.

I’ve written this in a matter of fact way. With most deaths, there is a lot of emotion. Spiritually, we can know what is happening, but the emotions are something different. For the person dying, there is often fear, even though they have done this millions of times before. The people around them often don’t want them to go. When the person does die they are badly missed by those still living, those still physically incarnate. There is grief and loss in the minds of those left behind.

When we have a connection with someone, there are energetic cordings between us and the other person, from our centres to theirs. The stronger the relationship, the stronger the cordings. When the other person leaves, the cordings start to drop away. If the other person dies, there are no centres for the cordings to get attached to. This can be traumatic on a personality level. Grief ensues.

The person dying usually sees the light and as that is so amazing in comparison to what they experience in a physical body, off they go. Sometimes the grief and the emotional attachment of those left behind binds the spirit and soul in the space around the earth making them earthbound. This is not a pleasant or ideal situation for the person who has dropped their body as they are trapped and stopped from doing what they need to. These souls need to be rescued and released, so they can move on (this is rescue work). For many people, if they were generally happy, their spirit and soul gets to reside for a while in an energetic space that matches that positive emotional nature, where it is re-experienced and drains away. This space was known about by the Buddhists who thought of it as a positive bardo state. In Christianity it is called heaven. If someone’s general state was fear, or anger, or other negative state, the soul and spirit would go to a space that matched this and helped to draw the emotions out for a while so the soul can go off to the next lifetime with a clean slate. The Buddhists think of this state as a negative bardo state, and in Christianity it would be called hell.

When it comes to people we have a relationship with of some sort in this lifetime, usually we have had at least a few lifetimes with them in some sort of relationship such as friend, enemy, sibling, parent, son / daughter of, wife / husband, extended family member, and so on. We will have known them before. It’s likely we will see them again in future lifetimes, too, as there are karmic links. So death ends that well known link for now, but you get to see them again.

When out of physical body, being physically alive as opposed to being a soul and spirit on the inner planes, is not the big deal we make of it when we are in a physical body. We know there is more to that existence, we have it more in perspective. Physical life is a way of learning and developing through many lifetimes to become what we can be, which is a soul on the Divine Journeys, but knowing much more, and being more, than a soul who has not made the journey down into creation and back into the Divine.

Reincarnation is part of that process. Some distant day in the future we may understand that when someone dies that soul is going on the next part of their journey.

In the West, there are people who request funerals that are more upbeat and more of a celebration of that person and their life, rather than being a solemn affair. I do wonder how they will be when we really come to terms with reincarnation.

Taken from “If reincarnation is true, how would you live your life?” Spiritualgrowthadventure.com

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God’s plan for peace and harmony

As the twentieth century ended and the twenty first century started as the calendar went into 2000, there was a worldwide sense that everything was going to get better and there would be peace and prosperity for all and there would be more harmony. That is what a lot of people thought, and did it happen?

There is a massive difference between what humanity thinks and what happens spirituality. Another way of saying this is that humanity doesn’t understand life in a spiritual way. There is a lot of religion, but that is old bits of information, which tends to be interpreted in the ways that people want to interpret them.

Most human thinking is driven by desire. Desire to be “safe” and comfortable, have enough food (which can be different to nutrition), have money and in some cases huge amounts of money, and have things go on in predictable ways without too many challenges, and often have things happen around them the way they want things to happen. People like to stay in their comfort zone.

Harmony and peace are part of God’s plan for this planet and the rest of Creation. How humanity has carried on up to this point has very little to do with harmony and peace. To get to a proper state of harmony and peace requires change.

Our planet is polluted. To make life convenient we took to using plastics big time. The result being that all manner of creatures are being damaged and killed by plastics, and we are all contaminated by microplastic from our food, from the water we drink and even from the air we breathe in cities. And we still make millions of tons of plastic every year while the politicians do nothing to stop them being made. Still, we must have convenience. Our way of life is all about consuming, and then getting rid of things. Even the environmental activists will have their iPhones and smartphones, and will happily replace them with the latest version and throw away the old model. Because we consume and throw away, the huge number of people all doing this is a problem for the planet.

Even our use of the internet affects the planet. Servers require electricity, and electricity production can result in CO2 emissions. Servers also produce a lot of heat, which ends up in the air and water. The production of cryptocurrency requires a vast amount of electricity. New ideas like this aren’t always great.

God has a plan to bring about peace and harmony. The bad news for humanity is that current way of doing things and living has to change to something better. So it is change or be changed.

An aspect of spirituality that people don’t get is karma, taking into account the big picture. To get an idea about this it helps to know about root races.

Humanity has been around for a very long time, and this is only a brief description of root races of humanity. There has been 5 root races so far, the Adamic, the Hypoborean, the Lemurian, the Atlantean, and the Aryan root races. Each subsequent root race had a more evolved chakra system. The last three still have an influence on what is happening now. There have also been sub-root races, when certain developments needed to happen in humanity. A few examples of these are the Romans, the ancient Chinese, the Native American Indians. Sub-root races come in with a certain spirit to do things in a particular way and have a particular effect on humanity and life.

People have many, many lifetimes, so they are likely to have had Lemurian, Atlantean and lifetimes in the Aryan age. So people have karma from these root races. (Remember with reincarnation, people get to experience a diversity of different genders, different skin colours, different cultures, different levels of wealth, intelligence, physical welbeing, family set-ups, types of personality, mental health, beauty etc. so what you are like now is different to how you have been.)

There is a new root race that is due to come in, the sixth root race, where humanity has a more advanced chakra system than the current set up, and so will feel and think and handle energy in a more advanced way to the current way. There are also going to be some very advanced souls coming in to move things along.

It is the end times for the Aryan root race. And all the karma from the Lemurian, the Atlantean and the Aryan has to go. This means it has to be gone through and balanced. Karma includes individual karma, group karma, national karma, regional karma and planetary karma. Rough news for anyone wanting a comfortable, predictable life. Good news for anyone willing to get into their heart centre, tune into their intuition, and do what seems to be right.

Rather like when you go inside a very old building, and can feel the atmosphere, the residue of the old energy of their activities, the people in the old root races left behind some energy which is like a residue of energy on the land, which needs to be cleaned up. So the energy of the land needs cleaning up and uplifting.

I have mentioned before in the blog about weather systems having devas in them that drive the weather to shift old negative energy. This is a big clean up time for the planet, and humanity may want to find ways to adapt to it.

People who have read the books of Meher Baba will have come across the idea that in the early twentieth century, the general mix of energy was 75% dark and 25% light, and people in those days were used to that. He stated that by 2069 the energy needed to be 25% dark and 75% light. That is a lot of change to bring about in about 160 years, affecting all life, including humanity in all ways. People orientated to the light will like it.

There have been times in the past when humanity has faced challenges and adapted. God has a plan to change a lot of things down here to vastly improve the energy, to bring in the next root race with its higher level of vibration, to bring through a higher level of spirituality (there are always more levels!), along with more peace and harmony.

It is going to be an interesting journey to get there.

© 2020 Jonathan Barber

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The Accidental Tarot Reader (Or I didn’t see that coming!)

Life can take us to places we don’t expect or plan for, but which turn out just right.

I had developed a decent ability in healing, and wanted to make my services available in central London. So one day I visited a shop that I knew had rooms above to hire. I began to talk to the manager when a tarot read came down stairs followed close behind by a client. The tarot reader exclaimed to the manager that they couldn’t read for the client, that it just wasn’t working. Without thinking, I said, “I’ll do it!” The client said, “Yes”. The manager gave me an annoyed look, gave me a pack of tarot cards, saying, “I hate people who interfere.” The customer and myself went upstairs to a room with a few other tarot readers in cubicles.

We sat opposite each other at a small table, the client, a woman about forty years old or so, shuffled the cards, gave them to me and I laid them out in a pattern.

I had a deck of tarot cards at home but the pictures were more a complicated collage of images, more Californian than traditional. Old style images didn’t give me too much to go on and strictly, I didn’t know their meanings in a traditional sense. I had practised a little on friends before with my pack, though hadn’t considered doing readings as a job.

I went for it anyway, and told a story based on the feelings and impressions I picked up from the images on the cards. The reading was fun and it was a great success. The customer was happy and I got paid. The Wednesday after the manager phoned me up and asked me if I would be a tarot reader in the shop. The next Wednesday, I was there.

This all started with not having an open third eye, nor was I aiming to open it.  I was given some advice by a healer to chant Om as an exercise to clear all my system as well as my chakras. First 20 minutes a day for a week. Then 40 minutes every day for the next week, and then for an hour.

I was in no rush to open my third eye. I had heard stories of people pushing it too far and ending up seeing much too much energetic phenomena, which for the unprepared mind can be scary. The astral levels can be split into the lower, middle and upper. Experiencing a lot of lower astral level phenomena due to an open third eye and no training in tuning your third eye (rather like tuning into different radio frequencies), is something to be avoided.

With chanting and meditation, I began to just “know” things about people and situations, and see things around them. Friends would ask me to tune in about issues for them.

To give readings in the shop, I experimented with different patterns of cards so that I could tune into specific information in depth, such as relationship issues, or issues to do with business and projects, or the qualities of individuals and organisations.

Working with clients, at first I found I was taking on board any negative energy they brought along. They were getting a healing while I got that energy. I soon learned how to clear negative energy and offer it up for transmuting and releasing. I learnt how to protect my aura better. Working as a tarot reader was a great opportunity for me to get good at handling energy. I also learnt how to clear and close my third eye and give it a rest.

I tried to apply positive thinking rather than be fatalistic. I didn’t give a reading with the mindset of, “it’s fate and this is the result”. I looked for options and the best scenario. To my way of thinking, if I was giving a reading about a client, I regarded them as having an actual timeline, and also some probable timelines that could happen if they put some time and effort, basically energy into them. I also considered they had some parallel timelines that were slightly different.  It was like giving a reading but saying, “and here is the small-print, and this is what can be altered and changed with some application…these are the options”.

A basic spiritual rule is, “energy follows thought”, and putting energy into something creates a small, or a large result.

The readings told people what the current situation was, what were the available options, what seemed to be the best option, then we looked at what steps needed to be taken in what they thought, and what practical steps should be taken, to get onto the optimal timeline.

It’s like looking down a path, considering what it is like, then seeing how it splits into different paths, and choosing the best path and identifying how it needs to be traveled, to create the best possible future.

It was very enjoyable. After a while, I was giving the readings faster than I was turning over the cards to see the pictures. So I gave up using the cards.

After that, I started to run workshops to help people to develop their intuition, and showed them how to look after their energy should they choose to work with other people.

For FAQs about meditation, click here.

If you would like to know about online meditation and courses that are available, click here.

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I’ve got a feeling

A demonstration was often used in an Aikido class I went to. A volunteer was asked to firstly think of times when they were unhappy, low on confidence, upset, or irritated and angry. They then walked past close by the Sensai (instructor) who put his arm out in front of their chest to block their progress, and the volunteer ended up being stopped. The volunteer was then asked to remember happy times, when they felt great and really confident, and when they had achieved a goal. They walked by the Sensai again, who once more put his arm out to try to stop them, but this time, they could keep on walking and brush him off.

Part of the Aikido training was to build up the capacity to stay centred, calm, positive and confident. When this happened the Ki (or chi) energy could keep flowing like a torrent. This was useful in the Aikido class, but it was also useful in daily life, as there are things that happen in life that can knock us off centre, there are things that people can say or do, that can send negative energy our way. Having that ability in the first instance to stay confident and centred is really great. As is the ability to get back quickly to the point of balance having been knocked off our emotional balance.

I remember times when I have felt happy and confident in the past, and from an energy point of view, that has helped my positive energy flow, and then I have surprised myself in what I have achieved, which has made me realise that perhaps at times I have limited myself. I can recall times when I have felt down, and lacking in confidence, and then really, I didn’t do much, and slid into feeling the victim, and being self-pitying, and then going into blame and resentment. All of which are fairly useless things if you want to get on with life and enjoy it, and live the way you really want, as it places the power to be yourself and be happy outside of yourself, which means you can’t change things. When you own it, you can change it.

The aikido, and many other lessons in life have taught me that how we feel is up to us. The power to have positive feelings is not “out there” with someone else, but inside us. With a change of heart, and a change of mind, we can have positive feelings and confidence, and let our positive energy flow. If you like, it helps us connect with our Ki (or Chi), or however else you would like to phrase it.

Simple.

I’m sure there are people who actually believe that. In many situations it is simple to shift your feelings and thoughts. But in other situations something else has to happen. If a child is upset do you tell them that they have everything inside them to change the feeling and thoughts and be happy, and leave it at that? If someone is struggling in water do you shout at them and tell them they have the power to save themselves? If someone is depressed do you say something like they only have to choose happiness or some other facile words? If someone is knocked to the ground in an accident do you say to them they have all they need inside themselves so they can get up?

With upsetting or angry or sad or depressing feelings, or just feeling down, sometimes people need a hand rather than a simplistic answer. Emotions is emotional energy in a person’s aura and chakras. Sometimes there is a lot of it, sometimes the energy is very sticky, sometimes it is attached to a doorway onto a memory that is repeating in a loop as with trauma. Help is required. Comfort, and time needs to be given. With a child, they sometimes need holding and soothing words for the energy to shift and for them to be happy again. A common sense solution from someone with the spiritual capacity to share some love is what is required in this and other situations.

Someone who is down or depressed can greatly have their spirits lifted by someone giving them some support. It could be simple support, like being taken out into Nature, out of the usual environment, or given the chance for physical movement which can help shift the energy.

With past trauma, then continual support might be required, along with healing or therapy to shift the emotional energy, and heal the past trauma and close the door on it.

When feelings are not influenced by past issues, how we feel is affected by what we think. People who think positively, or who deliberately use positive affirmations, will have emotions that match that. Conversely, anyone who thinks negatively will have emotions to match that. So if someone habitually thinks they are a victim, or think that other people (the government, “they”, the media etc) are in control of their lives, or who think something terrible is going to happen, or that the world is an unsafe place, then their emotions will be the output from their thoughts. But people can be in charge of their own minds, and are free to deliberately think the thoughts they want to.

There could be two people in the same room, one with positive thoughts about life, and one with negative thoughts, and as far as they are concerned, life accurately reflects back to them their thoughts, as they focus on what they believe to be true and ignore that which doesn’t match their thoughts, as they simply can’t perceive it. Same planet, but apparently different realities.

Thoughts and feelings do affect health as well as how much life energy people express, and so affect life and what it reflects back to them. Also, on a spiritual level, energy follows thought, which shows up in everyday life.

What do you feel about that?

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Asking God or the Universe can make you happier

Spirituality can be very practical and it can encompass all aspects of life. It doesn’t need to be compartmentalized away from everyday life, and many people know this, and work with their spirituality in life all the time.

There is a lot of information and knowledge that people consider is spiritual in nature, though it might not apply to everyday life. For instance, how does knowing that energy is all around us help or influence how we live and what we do? Some people talk about portals, gateways and vortices, and consider information about them as important, or regard themselves as being “awakened” or “enlightened” (and others not). There are a whole bunch of other ideas to be found under the umbrella of spirituality, and people take on board those ideas they want to and reject those they don’t agree with.

What I’m interested in right now is how spirituality is linked with everyday life and how it helps people live and be happy and fulfilled. If you go on social media, it is easy to come across people on spiritual groups who are depressed or feeling miserable, or who are angry and some who are aggressive and attacking others.

The way I see it, if following some spiritual ideas make your aura grow and glow and look vibrantly healthy, then they are great ideas. If they help you to approach life in a way that your life works and you are happy and fulfilled then they are great spiritual ideas. We are here in physical reality for a reason, and when we have great spiritual concepts to live by, then we look energetically great, and life works. Life is a great place to test ideas out to see if they actually work. Caveat: if we have some negative karma to go through and so balance out from previous lives, we might not feel good and life might be bumpy, but at least we are going through the process of balancing, which is healthy in the end.

Even in cases of going through the negative karma, useful spiritual concepts can help us get it that it’s not all God’s fault, and we avoid just basically showing we don’t understand about karma. Useful spiritual concepts can instead help us to have inner strength and recognise and bring in the support that is actually available.

This isn’t new stuff, and it isn’t a secret (although if anyone wants me to wrap it up in mystique and say it’s exclusive and charge them a lot for it I can).

Basically there is God, and in fact our souls are all bits of God (which is why after a while, a long while of being through many lifetimes on the spiritual journey, the soul actually really gets it and thinks “I AM God”, but the focus right now is on everyday life).

Gods loves us totally though it might not feel like that because of karma and how rough it feels sometimes as we go through the negative karma, although unpleasant and painful situations can focus us on God. If life was pleasant all the time, the usual result so far has been for souls, for people, to forget about God. Perhaps this might change.

With God loving us, we can ask God for things. We can ask for advice. God knows us better than we know ourselves. God also knows what it is we actually need in order to be happy. God knows what physical things we need, and why. God knows the best ways to be to be as happy and as healthy as we can be. God knows the job or jobs we need to do in order to be happy and “successful” whatever that is going to mean for us. If you run your own business, well, there are people who consider God as their go-to business partner for ideas and solutions. People ask for things in meditation, and notice any responses which may be visual, or something spoken, or an image mixed with a feeling. They don’t force a response, they just open, relax and wait, or let the response pop in as they go through their lives. It helps to have the space and time to be receptive, so being on the smartphone all the time is the opposite of smart.

Some people find it difficult to relate to God, so they put out their request to that nebulous idea of “the Universe”, and let “the Universe” give them feedback. Makes you wonder if “the Universe” is something to do with God, perhaps.

The above is deliberate and conscious asking. Putting the thought out deliberately. But there is something else happening at the same time. There is a lot of thinking going on that isn’t deliberate. There might be habitual patterns of thinking happening as well, all…the…time. There might (will) be thinking going on subconsciously. These thoughts might be at odds to the deliberate thinking and requests going out.

Now energy follows thought. So when you think something strongly, and particularly if you think something habitually and repeatedly, a lot of energy goes out with that thought to God, or if you prefer, to the Universe. God, or the Universe if you like, gives you back what you think. So if you give out mixed messages, then the results coming back are not going to be clear.

Unhelpful habitual and subconscious thinking is like a long train travelling at speed. It keeps on going. As do your thoughts. You can change your thinking by deliberately thinking more helpful thoughts, repeatedly and over a long period of time. It’s a bit like putting the brakes on that long train. It takes a while for it to slow and stop, then go in the direction you want. It’s not impossible, and other people have done it, by being persistent and never giving up.

The other way people have quick results regardless of what they think about the situation or themselves is by believing. They believe that for God, anything is possible (so long as they ask for what God knows is right for them). They have faith. They know that God can deliver. Without necessarily knowing about it, the use or invoke the Law of Faith, which overrides any negative thinking and, it is done. So people who have faith in some kind of Higher Power are likely to have a life where things just happen for them. They ask for something, let go of the situation, and let God get to work, knowing God does it in the right time and right way.

Having this knowledge and this ability to Trust, to have faith, makes life a whole lot more fun, and relaxing. The key to this is just discussing things with God or the Higher Power or the Universe, and then asking, then letting go of the how and the when, and being happy and trusting. Is that so hard?

Now there are other things that make a person’s aura grow and glow. I’ll mention them here but maybe discuss them later. One, no gossiping, which discolours your aura and gives you unpleasant cordings and a bad case of low vibrational aura. Two, thinking positively of people and yourself brightens things up. Three, forgiveness. Four, gratitude; count your blessings. Five, giving, which might be money, gifts, a smile, positive words, or some help. Six, give yourself time to recharge. Seven, do the things that you enjoy and make you feel happy and excited.

Time for a New Prosperity

There is a new book about Prosperity. Click here to find out more…

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Ten Tips For Fulfilling Meditation

People are drawn to meditation for any number of reasons. If they stay with meditation, what they can build is a wonderful connection with their inner selves. Over time, this deepened connection helps improve their everyday life in subtle and noticeable ways.

Meditation can help to release stress and prevent it. It can lead to relaxation and a sense of peace and well-being. Meditation can enable a person to put life’s challenges and problems into perspective and even sometimes be the source of solutions. Meditation can help us live life with a sense of balance and peace. This in turn can help us be more effective at life, as well as help us experience a rich, inner life. And if we want it, meditation can be the doorway to so much more.

There are many methods and schools of meditation. Fulfilling meditation though is actually fairly straightforward to achieve, bearing in mind the following ten points. By putting into practice some or all of these, high quality meditation experiences are possible.

1) The place. Choose the place where you feel happiest meditating. For some people it is completely appropriate to meditate on the bus, train, or underground train (I used to do this sitting or standing up when I first started as it seemed a great way to pass the time). However, there are those special places, and special times that are very conducive to good quality meditation. Having a special part of a room, or an entire room dedicated to the sole purpose of meditation helps in a number of ways. For one, being in a dedicated place tells your body and mind it is meditation time. Secondly, the meditation energy builds over repeated use and there grows a meditative atmosphere.

Make the space how you want it. Some people like a small table with flowers and a candle, crystal or picture. It all comes down to personal preference. Some people like an uncluttered space, with just a rug to sit on or a chair.

You can get a sense of what place feels the best for you, and it is good to go with that sense. There might be ley lines running through the house or there might be energy spots, which can be either positive or negative. The more beneficial and positive a place feels, the better for meditation. This applies to meditating outdoors, too. Some places will feel great, which is a sign of positive energy, and others wont; trust your feelings on this rather than any one else’s opinion. Going into Nature off the beaten track you can find pristine, clean energy places. Being outdoors such as on a beach at dawn or sunset can be very inspiring.

2) Clear the energy of the space around you. If you are out in Nature in a place that feels good then you won’t need to do this. There are various techniques for clearing the meditation space. First of all, keep the place as clean as you can; vacuum, dust and polish. This shifts quite a bit of the energy that should not be there along with any physical dust or dirt. A simple way to clear a space is to say out loud, “I claim this space for God, may the Father’s Will be done”. There are other techniques that are more detailed that can be used as well.

3) Length of Meditation. Decide how long to meditate for. If you are a beginner, 20 minutes is a good time to go for. After a few weeks you could build up to 40 minutes or 60 minutes or stay on 20 minutes. It is what feels right that counts. Everyone is different so different times apply. Also, it’s quality rather than quantity.

In meditation you may find yourself going into a space where perception of time changes. A lot can happen quickly in meditation as time is experienced differently on the inner planes compared with life in the external world. If you wish, use a timer to tell you when the meditation time is up.

Having a set time is good rather than letting the meditation go on and on. In the West, meditation is supposed to be a time of going inside and into your inner world, and to regenerate to help with living in the 3-dimensional world. Meditation is not well used if it is just an escape from life and uses up too much time. Spirituality is about balance, living an outer life and an inner life in a way that helps life happen beautifully and lovingly.

4) Good preparation. A good meditation usually comes through good preparation. There are a few aspects to this. An essential one is grounding and rooting yourself into the Earth. In meditation your awareness can go up as far as it can go into the light. The light can be powerful and affect you. People who meditate can become ungrounded and out of touch with life around them, which defeats the object of meditation. It is possible to become merely blissed out and miss out on all the other gifts of meditation. With good grounding and by anchoring yourself into the Earth before meditation it is actually possible to go up higher, handle and absorb more energy and light, flow on top of the energy rather like a surfer can ride a wave, and be aware of what is going on.

Good grounding comes with enough sleep, rest, time outdoors, exercise, and eating foods that produce a solid feeling (steak and chips or baked potato is good). Some foods are ones that are thought to go with a lifestyle that in some people’s minds is considered spiritual. It’s just opinion. But really it is always best to expand your options and go with what feels right to your body, or feels intuitively right and be true to yourself, rather than another person’s opinion. Choose for yourself foods that help you feel healthy, vitalised, and with both feet on the floor.

Good grounding can involve “rooting in”, which means imagining growing roots out of your feet and the base of your spine deep into the Earth, through the granite layer, through the magma and iron core and all the way to the centre of the Earth. Have the roots branch out as they go down. Imagine the roots growing from every part of your body including the organs and bones, through your feet and spine. Notice how this feels.

5) Clearing your energy. Next comes clearing your energy so the energy you receive in meditation can have a clear run in your system. Clearing can be done with light flowing from a white/gold star or flat disc directly above you, like the midday sun, and slower frequency light or energy coming up from the Earth. If you have your roots down, imagine the Earth’s slowly vibrating energy that is nourishing, restful and healing, flow up through your feet to the top of your head. Then some of this slow frequency energy splashes out of the top of your head to wash over your skin and the space around you and falls back to the Earth. The rest recedes back through you into the Earth. Let a few more waves of Earth energy rise up and flow back down. The Earth’s energy will take with it any slow frequency energies that don’t need to be in your body.

Next, light from the star or disc pulses down through the top of your head and flows down through all parts of your body, through all your organs, your bones, and into the ground. The light pulses down several times. This combination clears your system.

6) Focus on your heart. In our society and in the busy world we can spend too much time and energy being in our heads. Being in your head tends to block the flow of energy in meditation. A good balance is 50% head and 50% heart, though more heart energy than this is acceptable.

Focusing on the heart is straightforward and involves noticing how your body feels in the centre of your chest where your heart chakra is for a couple of minutes. If your attention drifts, just bring it back to your heart chakra. You could visualise a white or pink flame in it. Other colours may come with practice though these two are good to start with. You may find the flame seems to expand with repetition.

7) Be Still… During meditation you might get the urge to move, itches appear, thoughts may flit into your mind, and emotions may come bubbling up. What you are after is silence and stillness.

Some people beat themselves up because they are experiencing, and getting caught up in, internal interference rather than experiencing total calm. The trick is to give none of the thoughts, feelings or physical sensations any importance.

Calming ourselves can occur through using rhythmic breathing. There is also another way to help us now with this. There are some new, evolved devas who are special types of silence and stillness that are highly conducive to good meditation. The silence feels like absolute soft, silky peace, like being in a comfortable darkened room. The stillness is like absolutely everything still and unmoving. It creates an energetic open space in which everything good can happen. You can ask for, and focus on these energies or qualities of silence and stillness, and immerse yourself in them.

8) For a beautiful meditation use a rose. A way of producing a beautiful meditation is to then imagine a pure white rose which is a very powerful symbol, coming down from the gold/white star or disc, in through the top of your head (your crown chakra) and down into your heart. Place your awareness on this rather special white rose. It will radiate light and energy. What happens next depends on the moment. You may find the white rose stays there, or it grows, or radiates out a variety of colours, or replicates with roses going around your body. At this point you can go onto the next stage which is:

9) Let go. We often try to control what is going on with our heads. In meditation, once it is set up well and feels good, we let go and let the meditation happen. Every meditation is unique; it’s like an inner plane adventure every time. Meditating like this, life will give us messages in words, pictures and objects which we can notice if we are alert to them. Life will give us information which may spontaneously have relevance for us in our meditation. This sounds strange but will make sense after a while spent meditating.

10) Back in your body and protection. When the meditation comes to an end it is important to go through a procedure to come back fully into your body. This can be done by breathing deeply, feeling and stretching all parts of your body, and becoming aware of your roots again.

A lot of people don’t close their centres properly after they have opened up in meditation. It is good practice to close the centres in order to take good care of your energy. There are a number of ways to visualize closing your chakras. One is to see them as having double doors that need closing and locking. Another is to see the doorway to the centre like the front part of a camera that spirals in or out to control how much light gets in. This can be closed up completely. It is useful to know the chakras of the body, and starting at the crown chakra at the top of the head, close that tight and seal it with a protective symbol; the white rose would be a good choice. Then work down each chakra, finishing at the base centre. In this way, the energy and any healing that came about in the meditation gets to stay in your system.

2019 Jonathan Barber

Revised 2021

Wednesday evening online meditation: If you would like to know about online meditation and courses that are available, click here.

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If you want to learn more about meditation and explore what can be done with it, and explore your spiritual self, take a look at this book “Meditation: Opening Doorways On A New Reality”.

“Meditation: Opening Doorways On A New Reality”. Book now out.

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Dealing With Bad Experiences And Trauma Energetically

Dealing with bad experiences and trauma in the past that affect a person’s life in the present, has been going on in modern times since early in the twentieth century. One way of trying to deal with the symptoms is to cover them up or manage them with medication. But that doesn’t deal with the root of the issue.

There are other ways of dealing with bad experiences and trauma. Think of a human as a physical body, with nervous system, muscles and bones and organs. With this is an etheric body that the physical body sits in, then there is the astral body and the mental body which is larger in which everything sits. These energy bodies go all the way through the physical body, and in them there are the chakras which are energy centres. It is also worth considering energy channels in the body, such as those that carry chi energy, or prana energy. There is an aura around a person and the aura has a skin or outer layer, which holds in the energy, and acts as a buffer (or sometimes not!), as protection from negative astral and mental energies.  

With a traumatic experience there may be damage to the physical body. There can also be an emotional response to the traumatic experience, and intense negative thoughts that have driven deep into the mind, during and after the trauma. If the trauma is inflicted by another person, then their negative emotional and negative intent also goes into the emotional or astral body and into the mind. Along with this, intense negative emotions and intense negative thoughts affect health and functioning of the body. So a powerfully negative event where a person isn’t physically harmed, but where they experience intense negative emotions and thoughts, say through bullying or intimidation, can manifest itself in the body as an illness or impaired function.

With a traumatic experience, the emotional and mental energy of it stays stuck in the astral and mental bodies, in the chakras, and the outer skin of the aura could be damaged, even when any physical trauma may have been partially or totally healed.

This negative emotional energy, and mental energy as thoughts can be intensely replayed again and again. Or the negative energy can be triggered so it keeps on affecting the person. It is like the trauma happening again and again on emotional and mental levels. Each time it happens, it takes its toll on the person. This happens for as long as the person lives unless it is dealt with.

For negative emotional and mental energy to be dealt with it has to be removed by ways that affect energy like that. It won’t happen with medicines or drugs.

There are ways of handling negative emotional and mental energy and releasing it, and providing emotional and mental healing.

One powerful way is bodywork, working on the body of the person, though remember the physical body is connected to the etheric body, the astral or emotional body, the mental body and the mind, and the chakras, so when the physical body gets worked on, all these parts get worked on. Also, the body stores memories of what happens to it, going way back.

There are gentle forms of bodywork, and more intense forms (which some might consider too painful). Gentle bodywork can still trigger powerful releases of emotional energy, and the thoughts that are tied in with this to bring about an amount of healing. Usually each bodywork session would bring about a small amount of healing that the body can cope with, and in gaps between sessions, the body, emotions and mind can adjust to the new situation.

Even using reflexology on feet or hands, which is not so invasive for people who don’t like their body being touched, can affect all of the body and the emotions and mind. Over time, with enough sessions, there is a cumulative effect.

There are some extremely sensitive and gentle forms of bodywork that have a big effect on the body, emotions and mind. One such is cranial sacral osteopathy. There is one technique (I can’t mention the name as it is trademarked) where the body is held and moved very gently and it literally unwinds tension and trauma out of it.

Even normal massage can help, the human touch can be very powerful. Aromatherapy, where essential oils from plants are massaged into the skin, can have very powerful effects on the emotions, and bring about healing release.

Deep tissue massage can be painful but it really shifts the energy out of the body, to release the memories and the energy stored in the body. So over several sessions, a person can release a lot, if they can cope with a bit of pain.

This is only a brief description of some bodywork and massage techniques, as it is intended to show what can be done about dealing with traumatic experiences and their effects by removing the emotional and mental energy in a person’s system.

Healing techniques which introduce positive energy into the person’s system are worth considering to help remove negative energy. Years ago I experienced a technique myself, and then used a similar technique to help others release negative emotional and mental energy.  It was a breathing technique that was based on kriya yoga,( that in itself is likely to be of benefit), which in yoga terms, resulted in prana building up in the body which then brought to the surface emotional issues to be released.

Again, as with the bodywork, it seemed to release old memories and the locked in emotional and mental energy, and needed to be done over a number of sessions. Over time, as issues were dealt with tension was released and the body felt so much more relaxed, and the mind felt calmer.

This breathing technique was originally called Rebirthing as the people who started it off in America claimed they re-experienced their birth. Though this happened in their first Rebirthing session for them, it doesn’t mean other people would necessarily experience this. Whatever comes up in the session, comes up. Other people changed and tweaked the process and focused on different aspects that basically they preferred to the Rebirthing angle with its spiritual background. I used it in a way that people could focus on the emotions that came up, without getting sucked into the emotions, whereas instead they could observe and feel the emotions being released and cleared. With the emotions cleared, the thoughts associated with the emotions also went. Often people had deep insights about themselves and about their feelings because of this.

Massage and bodywork, and breathing techniques are good for releasing emotions and thoughts and the memories held in the body. But where possible, talking about feelings and thoughts, and memories and events, also helps bring them up, and makes them available for release. Also, being counselled by someone who listens well, and who can help the person come to a new understanding and make steps to move forward is really helpful.

I have seen people being firstly counseled through a technique called Focused Expressive Psychotherapy, which brought up a lot of feelings and thoughts, and then they went straight into a breathing session in which they could release and clear those emotions and thoughts very effectively. It was a powerful combination; very transformative.

I have seen a form of hypnotherapy used alongside counseling over several sessions, along with positive relaxation meditations shift anxiety. With each session, there was a definite shift in energy.

There are other purely energetic techniques, for instance homoeopathy. This works on energy in the physical, astral and mental body and works on the person as a unique individual. In my own experience I have found it very powerful. Over a period of a year or two or more years it is possible to make a lot of shifts in body, mind and emotions. There are other modalities that work directly on the energy of a person, and homoeopathy is given here as an example. I do find though, that being able to have counseling and talk about matters is important too, as by thinking and talking about the past, and thoughts and feelings in a reflective way, it helps people think about the future and how they would like it to be, and how they would like to be in that future.

When the thoughts and emotions from bad experiences and trauma get stuck in a person’s energy system (aura, subtle bodies and chakras), it is like these thoughts and emotions have a life of their own, and come up again and again, and are recycled and reinforced. What was mentioned previously will make a difference. But there is more which can be done.

When people think negative thoughts and experience the emotions that go with them, from an energy point of view, their vibration drops right down. “Energy follows thoughts”. From an energy point of view they radiate a low vibration, which affects what they attract into their lives. Therapy, healing and counseling can improve the situation. Learning to manage their thoughts, reduce the intensity of negative thoughts, and deliberately choose to do positive thinking, no matter if it is only in a small way to start with, can break the recycling of the negative thoughts and emotions. A powerful way of doing this is to work with a counselor who can work with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. In the UK this is a mainstream therapy, where it isn’t necessary to be able to “see” or sense energy.

This is just a brief look at a huge field, and there are other therapies and healing modalities that can work on the issue of locked-in and recycling thoughts and feelings due to bad experiences and trauma, from an energy point of view.

You may like to take a look at the article about reincarnation, karma and mental illness

For FAQs about meditation, click here.

If you would like to know about online meditation and courses that are available, click here.

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Spiritual Awakening and Mental Health

A year or so ago, I worked in a hospital with people who had been hospitalized due to severe mental issues.  As I started working with the patients I was shocked to see how fragmented and smashed their auras were. It was as if their auras had been shattered by the breakdown or trauma they had experienced.  Looking at their energy I could appreciate how fragile and tired they seemed, how what they had experienced had slowed their thinking and reduced their emotional responses. I could well appreciate it must take time to recover, to get better, and build up their energy, and their auras to a point where these patients would seem more solid, more grounded and more robust. I realised that some of the patients might never achieve that. 

As mental health issues are more in the open now, and people are more willing to talk or write about their experiences in the media or the internet, it seemed to me that mental health is a massive and complex area of health. Observing the patients in hospital I had a sense of how devastating some mental health issues are and how this showed up in the auras of patients.

Then I knew of people who had depression because of imbalance of the body chemistry and the influence of genetics. This showed up differently in the aura compared to the people I had seen in hospital. Then I knew of people who experienced depression and PTSD because of their experiences, and how the energy of these lodged in their systems.

My own experiences of mental health issues had been minor in comparison. It happened in a period of two weeks when I was twenty. My mind seemed fragile and I just knew my thinking was really not right and a bit crazy. I dealt with that by just keeping life as simple as I could. The episode passed.

In my late twenties, after I had found out about spirituality, a healer who gave readings looked down my timeline and said I would experience a dark period later in the year. When it started several months later, it was like everything looked and felt black and depressing. It was difficult to describe how my mind felt, the closest I could get was that it was lacking in joy, it just felt grim and black, without a happy thought, and depressed. Even though I felt that way, having been warned earlier, I knew this period would end, so for a few months, daily I made myself visualize several goals I had decided on earlier. I made myself exercise and go for walks. I felt like I was processing my way through darkness. After a few months, the dark period lifted, as if I had walked out of a tunnel.  The joy of life came back.

I have read a lot on social media about people discover spirituality for the first time, who have an “awakening”, then go on to experience depression, and in some cases, anxiety.

In the 1990’s I read a couple of books called Esoteric Psychology I and II. They were written by Alice Bailey who wrote many books to do with spirituality with a spiritual Tibetan guide between 1919 and 1949. She wrote that in the future as more spiritual energy came in and people opened up to spirituality, there would be new issues to do with mental health. At the time of reading I was surprised by this, but I get the drift of this more now. If new energy comes into chakras it can create effects in the mind, emotions and physical body, some of which can be difficult to deal with. I could see that if a person suddenly realises that what they thought about life and how it happens wasn’t true, and that life happens a different way, this can be extremely difficult for the mind to cope with. Gone is a sense of what a person can rely on, and gone is the identity they had built up. If there is nothing to replace it, then that is really hard for the mind, and the emotions to cope with.

This kind of mental illness shows up differently in a person’s energy, and has a cause to do with spiritual energy, and an event, called an “awakening”, as far as I can make out. This kind of mental health issue can be dealt with.

This kind of thing happened as well in the 1980’s and the 1990’s. But the culture was very different in the spiritual world. It was expected that at times on a person’s spiritual journey that things would get a little crazy, but there was a lot of support. Looking back, I realised that everyone that I knew that was going on their individual spiritual path looked after themselves because pursuing health wellbeing was all wrapped up in the idea of spiritual growth. People were careful what they ate, how they looked after their body, and even then hydration was a big thing. For emotional health it was normal to get some therapeutic help. For mental health and support people would read books, and I’m amazed when I look at today’s spirituality best seller lists they contain a lot of the same books I read back then. People also went to groups to learn and practise healing and therapeutic techniques, and meditation and movement disciplines. There was a lot of physically meeting up. People looked after themselves and each other. In those years depression just wasn’t something that happened because someone became spiritual.

What happened at the 11:11 Harmonic Convergence in Glastonbury, England, 1987, typified it for me.  The spiritual energy was high, and affected people in different ways, including triggering issues and painful feelings and thoughts for a few people. But there was a lot of support the whole time. There were meditation groups, there were healing groups, massage, crystals and therapy available. There was good quality vegetarian food. There were places for people to gather. There was a lot of nurturing support. People were looking after each other spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically, on the Tor and in the town. And it was an amazing experience.

That was the way to do spirituality; with physical, emotional, mental and spiritual support.

Over 30 years on, this kind of support is the way a spiritual awakening and spiritual journey can be a happy experience and I think the crucial aspect is people getting together physically.  Depression and anxiety brought on in the “awakening” process can be improved this way with the right support.

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If you would like to know about online meditation and courses that are available, click here.

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The Spiritual Energy Generators

There is some knowledge from the East that is known to only a few in the west. There is a small number of people, mostly in India, who are powerful generators of spiritual energy. They irradiate spiritual energy into a large area around them. These individuals are called “masts”; pronounced “musts”.

They are God-intoxicated beings. they have turned their awareness inside, onto the inner planes and they have glimpsed God, and have fallen deeply in love. Their only desire is to be with God, and to experience God. this means they have an intense desire for God at all times.

Though they are aware of God and God’s energy, they want more, they want everything. they feel the separation and their intense desire for God drives them to seek God everywhere, on the inner planes and in their outer world. Being open to God so deeply, God’s energy pours out of them, and sustains them.

As they are God-intoxicated, the masts have no care for the world around them, or where they live, or what they wear, or what they eat.

Usually there are people around them who feel and notice their spiritual aura, which blazes bright like a furnace for those who can use their third eyes. So masts are looked after and people do spiritual service by looking after them.

Some details about these spiritual generators have been written down. The Avatar Meher Baba, who dropped His body in 1969 in India, sought out and worked with masts. His followers chronicled His search for and work with masts.

More information on masts can be found in… http://www.avatarmeherbaba.org/erics/agentsmasts.html , https://www.avatarmeherbaba.org/erics/unmanistate.html , http://www.avatarmeher.org/masts/ ( a detailed source) ,The Awakener by Dr William Donkin, https://www.meherbababooks.com/products/books-about-meher-baba/the-wayfarers , (also available from other sellers), also other sources such as Wikipedia.

Masts Mohammed, Chacha, Mastani Mai

For FAQs about meditation, click here.

If you would like to know about online meditation and courses that are available, click here.

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We have the power to be grateful

Gratitude.

I go online most days and look at the news and social media. I realise it’s a daily diet of strife, anger, victimhood, blaming and hate. There are a lot of negative emotions flying around being produced by a lot of people who are in a state of upset, with minds like storms.

It is great to see that people express themselves, and we always can choose to watch or listen to their expression. Or turn it off. A lot of what gets expressed is low vibration emotion; it’s emotional pollution.

Rather like we pollute the seas and the air, some people in humanity pollute the ethers with negative emotion. Its wonderful when we come across someone’s expression that is inspiring, uplifting and which makes us smile or brings a sense of peace.

To me, in these times with major timelines coming to an end and fragmenting, and more spiritual energy coming into the planet to stir things up, it seems that there are some people with angry, reactive and noisy minds. Then there are some people who have beautiful minds, and hearts to go with them. They know how to be quiet and at peace, and when to express something beautiful, loving, and inspiring, in a beautiful and loving way.

What else can be perceived by the heart and mind as beautiful, loving and inspiring is Nature, and Life itself. When we go outdoors and take a moment to look at the Nature around us, we can feel how different it feels to busy human life, and the world that is on the internet. We can feel the peace and the nurturing.

There are instances in Life, and there are some things that people do that inspire an up-swell of love of appreciation and love. There is a lot to be grateful for.

When we experience something, or look at something, our minds and hearts perceive what is going on, depending on what is in our minds and hearts.

When we look at something or experience something we might feel gratitude for it. We can do that because we already have gratitude inside us.

We can deliberately choose to look at Life and the things around us and switch on the gratitude within us. Oddly enough this helps us to feel happy, and if you know about auras, your aura glows more, too. We also get to radiate out some lovely emotional energy.

We can choose how we look at life, and the emotions we feel about it. It’s within our power.

That is something to be grateful for.

(Strangely enough, the negative emotion that humanity sometimes generates doesn’t build up around the planet. It disappears, which is most odd, but it’s a good job, too.)

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What astrological sign are you? I’m Aquarius … Moon conjunct Aries, Mars trine Venus.


When it comes to astrology, your personal qualities and what your life is like, you can go for the simple stuff (All Libras are like this …) or you can go for something much more accurate and in-depth. You can get an astrological chart done. There will be plenty of information on your chart that is just right for you.

People’s ideas on astrology usually come from the horoscope pages in magazines and starter spiritual websites. But there is so much more to it than this.

The time, date and place of your birth can be factored in to create an accurate map of the energies and influences around at the time of your birth. Your chart can show up your qualities, your personality, and your approach to things like communication, finances and relationships, and give you guidelines for health. So that is for you.

If you are in a relationship, a good quality astrologer will be able to draw both your charts and compare them to find out what your relationship is like or going to be like. You can use this information to help you with your relationship, and to bring out the best in it.

Astrology can also be used, like a map, to show you key astrological events such as planetary conjunctions, or opposition of planets, and how the energy coming in influences world events and our lives generally.

Should you like to find out more, there are some great websites to take a look at such as Kaypacha on newparadigmastrology.com  and also on Youtube and facebook. There are other people doing charts and readings. A good starting point to learn more about astrology would be http://www.astrologers.com  for the USA, and theastrologicalsociety.co.uk. Other countries might have their own groups.

  There are plenty of books available. You could look at books such as Teach Yourself Astrology by J. Mayo and Astrology and its Practical Application by E. Parker as two examples.

As for date of death, I once read about a man who went for an astrological reading in India. After doing his chart the astrologer was shocked and annoyed and said he couldn’t be who he said he was because he should have been dead. He was a devotee of the Avatar, Meher Baba (more information to be found on the Internet and in books), and Meher Baba had changed his karma so he would still be alive as her was doing useful work. The Avatar and Perfect Masters can change a person’s karma that they were born with in whatever way they want. An astrological chart though, can still be useful, a lot more useful than a horoscope page.

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Valentine’s Day: romance and relationships, a spiritual view

Ah, l’amour. Spring is in the air (in the northern hemisphere any way). I felt I should do something for St. Valentine’s day, that feast of chocolate, fizzy alcohol, food, and I’m sure there’s something else… Oh. yes, meditation, that’s it!

meeting people and community

how to know if it is a good idea to get into a relationship

karma, love and relationships

Work with your higher self to feel good about yourself

For FAQs about meditation, click here.

If you would like to know about online meditation and courses that are available, click here.

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A Spiritual Warrior’s Guide to Life

Occasionally a person’s spiritual guides will interfere and precipitate a crisis in their life. They do this to create a shift in focus, and a change in direction, to get that person onto a new and more spiritual timeline. This means there are issues or problems for the person to deal with. Dealing with them brings about learning and development, including development of skills that can then be used to help others. Lifestyle and interests also change and become more spiritually orientated.

But after that, then what?

Before writing this I had been thinking about how I used to avoid reading newspapers during my own early involvement in what I considered spiritual matters. I did this because I thought I was not buying into negativity.

I had caught a song on the radio with the lyrics “I am a rock, I am an island, an island feels no pain”. It was a song about avoiding life in an attempt to avoid pain. I thought this was silly as no one is an island and no one is a rock. We are all connected. We are all part of humanity, of groups and society, often part of a family. It is other people we buy things from, that help us travel around, make goods, help us when we are not well or to improve well-being. What happens in one part of the world, and in one part of humanity can and does affect us. Even if someone lived off-grid, they still breathe the air and drink water that can be affected by the activities of others, and they are still subject to the laws of the land they live in.

The avoiding part or the ignoring part took me back to when I felt strongly I needed healing, different therapies, and self-help. I was very self-centred, focusing on dealing with my own issues, getting the help I felt I needed, and living a lifestyle I thought would help me be healthier and happier. I didn’t feel I had anything to give (apart from money for therapists and workshops), I was needy.

Dealing with my “problems” (really just areas for growth), I found I had more understanding than before, and I had learned skills and developed abilities which I could use for the benefit of others. This is probably common to a lot of healers and therapists.

There came a time when I stopped feeling there was a hole inside me that needed filling, and instead I felt like giving. I stopped feeling so delicate and sensitive. Instead I felt stronger and more robust. Whereas I had used spirituality to escape from life, I felt now I could live, using spiritual ideas to involve myself with life.

I knew that one approach to spirituality was to avoid life for fear of being contaminated by negativity, or, and I’m not sure by what process, adding to the negativity. I recognized that this approach was fear based. I think it’s far better to look at the problems and issues of humanity from a position of love and compassion.

A spiritual idea I had learnt was that the time for practicing spirituality in the cave or ashram was gone. As well as being inside us all, God is everywhere, in the world around us and in everyone. God is Life, God is Love. So to learn about God, to learn about Love, and to develop spiritually, living in and being involved in the world is the way to do it.

In the changes going on in the world as spiritual energy brings about that change, there are plenty of opportunities for loving, spiritual people to be practically loving and express their spiritual natures in practical ways.

With the Buddha it was the suffering of others that propelled his spirituality. Jesus taught about loving people. He gave us the parable of the good Samaritan. Other spiritual teachers have taught about loving others, often by doing work to alleviate people’s suffering and to help them have the basics they need for life. Going further, they help people live productive and fulfilled lives. For such spiritual beings, part of being spiritual means being involved in life, and being loving to others.

Within spirituality, it’s OK to care about issues and people. It’s OK to feel strongly about things. Being detached to deliberately avoid negativity, is not the same as being loving enough to care. To care enough to do something about a situation. There is a different kind of detachment where you can be cool-headed and emotionally detached enough to be truly helpful in difficult situations, rather than be caught up in the emotions. Though there might be a need to feel the emotions later. It is OK to get your hands dirty.

Thinking of helping other people, it may be the case that a spiritually inclined person, particularly if they are sensitive to energy, is concerned they might put themselves in a situation where they experience negative energy. It is sensible to think ahead like this, and it is possible to prepare and build up to such a scenario. A key point to bear in mind is that life is a spiritual training. We experience all kinds of energies, negative and positive, and learn by being in them about energy. We also learn how to deal with energy, and about ourselves. We learn by doing, and put on spiritual muscle by dealing with energy. Spirituality is to do with growth, and growth comes by experiencing new situations.

Some people are sensitive and some people aren’t. For the more thick-skinned amongst us, getting into situations where the energy is tough is straightforward. I have seen some people who are really energetically tough with big hearts doing amazing work with difficult and needy people. Their own training in life is often tough so they are prepared for the work they do; making a difference in people’s lives. (Plus they shift a lot of karma, gain a lot of spiritual points and work their heart centres. People don’t have to think they are spiritual to do real spiritual work.)

How to prepare for potential negative energy if you are sensitive?

A basic point is keep smiling and positive on the inside. A real smile on the inside, perhaps matched by one on your face, will help your heart centre open, and get your centres or chakras firing. It will help keep your thoughts positive which raises your vibration. As energy follows thought, a smile and matching thoughts keep negativity at bay and help your centres process any negative energy should it come into your aura.

Secondly, button-up or close up your centres, and seal your aura. There are meditations available to help you do this. A lovely one is to use one with a Native American flavour of wrapping yourself up in a protective animal spirit energy of something like an Arctic owl, or bison. Make sure to have your roots firmly down into the earth as this helps you process energy, also if you are rooted in and grounded, you make better decisions.

Thirdly, try to gain a sense of when you have absorbed more than enough negative energy, as it is time to clean up. At least the negative energy is being picked up doing something worthwhile.

If someone picks up negative energy they might find they feel emotionally low, or their thoughts are less positive. When I have overdone it, I might find the energy accumulates in my head (being positive:”Thank you God for the headache.”). Or I might have a stomach ache as I have been too involved to pay attention. My “gunk” level is too high and is way over my ankles. Fortunately, there are ways to shift the energy, emotions and thoughts, though. Some ways are practical and some are energy based. What suits depends on the individual.

In a physical way, washing hands (and feet) has a great effect. Showering, and having a bath with salt works. Physical activity will shift slow frequency negative energy out of the body. Walking in Nature, walking somewhere windy, and swimming in the sea or swimming pool works to shift energy as will yoga and sports. Generally, being healthy and fit means looking after your own energy, which makes you more effective in helping others.

There are meditations available to clear energies from the body, centres and aura. The energy can be shifted from the physical, astral, and the mental levels. With more and more practice, the meditations work quicker and quicker.

For an energetically sensitive person then, there is help available. What is also useful is to do a meditation in the morning to fill up with energy for the day, and receive energy for all the people you might meet. So it really is possible to have what is considered a spiritual outlook on life, and be involved in it in a practically loving way.

When someone is loving towards another person, and carries out an act of practical love, they balance negative karma, and gain positive karma. This can be a motivation to be involved with doing something for others. The most beautiful love though, is love freely given, free of desire for gain or recognition.

There is so much to be done, looking after and expanding the potential of people of all ages in our communities, helping them to find a voice,  to look after their basic needs, then empowered  them to be creative and economically independent. There are more hard core issues to be involved in, such as helping people who have been trafficked, who are recovering from drug addiction and countering the drug trade in communities, helping people exploited by some businesses, and helping people in other parts of the world supressed by dictatorial governments. There are a host of issues to do with people.

Then there is the environment. There is much to be done to clean it up. There is a need to protect it from some businesses, business people, criminal organizations and some politicians who value their profits and wealth above all else, and who care very little about the environment or people, though they might pretend to do so. One way for lightworkers with money to help, is to buy land to protect it. That really helps. It may be that some lightworkers’ skills lie in politics where it is really needed, in lobbying, business or finance, or also science and technology. There are lots of ways which give lightworkers their own unique powerful and practical way of expressing their spirituality through action, and of being the spiritual warrior. There is much to be done to gain and create the kind of world we want, based on love and spirituality.

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Countries: Fear and Love and Triangles of Energy


With the new energy and light flowing in and touching everything karma is being ignited and sped up for people, for groups and for countries, and the planet as a whole. Life is getting interesting.

Individual people have (a collection of) spirit. So too do groups and communities. Countries have their own unique spirit. When a person is born in a particular country they share in that spirit, and it will be different to the spirit of another country.

Countries have their unique spirit and they also have their own karma and timeline which is different to that of other countries. Countries do get to experience some of this karma by their interactions with other countries, physically, socially, emotionally, economically and in cyberspace. There is never a dull moment in the lives of countries! The karma of a country can at times be pleasant to experience and at other times it can be rough, sometimes extremely rough.

On some stages of a country’s timeline the energy can look great and at other times it can look awful.

Countries can be run by their governments according to Old Law, and old energy and old values, and on greed and fear for the most part. There may be some countries that have flowing into them some New Law or new spiritual law which affects how life carries on in the country and how the country is run.

The energy that a country has at any moment can be looked at as if it is a triangle of energy. The energy might look light, warm and inspiring or the triangle of the energy of a country might look dark, musty and old and worn. Or it might glower and be threatening and oppressive.

You might like to think of some countries and look at the triangles of their energy as it is today. (Don’t worry they will get better.)

There is what could be perceived as a problem for some people in a country. Usually this means the people in charge, in the establishment, and those that have made comfortable, prestigious or luxurious lives for themselves by doing things in the old way.

The new energy and light is shaking up things and bringing the energy to dismantle the old law and old ways, and bringing in new law, so that sometime in the future (which could be a couple of hundred years away or so) what happens in countries has a spiritual sense of rightness about it, and the triangle of energy looks lovely for the most part.

Getting to that point, while old law and new law, and the people with a vested interest in either old law or new law, sort things out between. There will be rough patches, as well as happier times.

What is the triangle of energy of the country you are in right now? What about the country it has dealings with?

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Spirituality, loneliness, meeting people, and community

When someone suddenly (and it is often suddenly) discovers they are a spiritual being, and that life is something different to what they thought it was, and there is love, energy, synchronicities and little and large miracles, and perhaps they find out about karma and reincarnation, and their heart awakens and opens, something they didn’t expect happens.

People around them, their family and friends, don’t share their new outlook on life and what it means to be alive. They can often react in bemused, or unfriendly or hostile ways. Old friends might drop  away. Family might become distant and critical.

The person who has woken up to love in their heart and a new way of perceiving life becomes alone and often lonely. They don’t have anyone to share their worldview and their life with.

I read this often on spiritual groups on social media. I will usually post a response. The last response I wrote on this topic was this:

“Physical spiritual community is a good idea. Why not set up an fb page for people in your area (20 mile radius) who think spirituality is important. Find out who lives in your area, tell health food stores and such places about your page and your desire to set up a group so spiritual people can get together. Then get some actual meet ups going; walks, meeting in a cafe, full moon meditations, a sharing session (good idea to have an item that the person talking gets to hold to indicate it’s them talking), introducing a favourite spiritual book meeting, and so on. Also go on courses or go to talks.”

I realise that in some countries the nearest neighbouring place could be over a hundred or more miles away. To get closer to kindred souls might mean moving.  If I had had a spiritual transformation in my home town I might have been unhappy. However, I had spirituality crash into me when I was living in London in the nineteen eighties (no internet, and people had to connect physically), so I was lucky. There was plenty of spiritual stuff going on and I could go on courses, do T’ai Chi, do meditation, go to talks, and get to meet people, and it was a really fun, creative time, and there was plenty of mutual support.

People now have the internet to help them connect, and with a will, it is possible to meet people, rather than just look at a screen.

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If you would like to know about online meditation and courses that are available, click here.