relationships

spiritualgrowthadventure

Death, Emotions and Reincarnation

Recently a friend from long ago died. I could see them up in the inner planes bright and sparkly, happy and thrilled at how they looked energetically. They were staying around, showing those of their friends and family who could see them how marvellous they looked and how happy they were.

And then, it was onwards to the next part of their adventure in the grand journey of Life.

Knowing them as I did, I knew they considered themselves as a soul with spirit, in a physical body. They thought of death as a transition and they knew about reincarnation.

For people who have such an outlook, death is just another step on the journey. The soul and spirit doesn’t die, it goes on. Those left behind who have this outlook can appreciate this and sometimes see the person who has died move on. This gets mixed in with the feelings of loss for those people who were close, as that person is no longer there, and a big part of their lives is gone.

In my own experience recently, two other people died and came close by on the inner planes basically glowing, and looking so radiant, saying their goodbyes before heading off. What helped is that they appreciated that death was a transition onto the inner planes, so there was no fear, anger, or trauma. Nor did they desperately try to hang on in a body that was too ill. Emotionally, they were at peace.

Emotions are important in death. Many years ago I had a sense that a much-loved elderly relative, was going to die, and they had about four months to live. I felt some preparation would help. They were still a bit active and mobile. They weren’t particularly religious or spiritual. They were kind and tried to be thoughtful in how they lived, which is pretty much a spiritual quality. I came across a book that would help me prepare.

In the 1980’s there was a book published called “The Tibetan book of living and dying” by Sogyal Rinpoche. In it there was a description of the Buddhist concept of the Bardo states. In Christian thinking there is the concept of heaven and hell, where souls go depending on whether the person has been “good” or “bad”, according to what other people determine is good and what is bad.

The Bardo states are more nuanced. There are several levels to them. There are several levels to the pleasant Bardo states, and there are several levels to the unpleasant going from the mildly depressing to the hellish. What determines where a soul goes is what they have done and the karmic consequences of that, and what the soul/person needs to go through to deal with those consequences, and also to deal with the energy of their emotions during dying, during leaving their physical body.

So if a person dies having being good overall, and they are happy and at peace, they go onto a positive level of the Bardo states for a while. If a person dies and has been negative in what they have done in their lives, they go onto an unpleasant Bardo states to repeatedly re-experience their actions to wear out the energy of that. Also, if a person is angry or fearful about their death, they go to a Bardo state to wear out that emotional energy before moving on. The same goes for feelings of addictions, they hang around on a Bardo state re-experiencing those sensations until they are used up.

The Buddhist concept of the Bardo states seems like a good explanation of what happens after death.

With regards to preparation, the Buddhists have prayers to prepare someone for death. These prayers clear any negative energy and provide positive emotional energy to alleviate any fear or anger at the time of death. The result is the person goes onto a positive Bardo state when they die. Prayers done properly and with focus are like light-filled words propelled by a loving intention, to bring about a positive change or situation.

I said the prayers for my relative daily for a couple of months, until it felt like time to stop. When the much-loved relative died I felt there to be a lot of peace about the death, and that they were happy with where they now were. For myself, I just felt a warm happiness for them rather than a sense of loss, as if the prayers I had done over time had worked on me, too.

With the recent deaths, for myself and for the friends who had died, there was the appreciation that death is just a transition and a part of the on-going journey of Life. We also held the concept of reincarnation, so we knew we had had many lives, and there were more to come, and we had died and been born many times. So what is there to worry about?

The best explanations of the reincarnation process and why it happens that I came across was by someone called Meher Baba. I found that understanding something of the reincarnation process stopped death from being a finality. I see it now as a transition we have done many times. I also found learning about reincarnation helped me to understand more of the big picture of what Life is all about. But that is another story.

For more about reincarnation and how belief in it can affect our approach to life, click here for an article on this blog.

For more on death from a spiritual point of view click here.

spiritualgrowthadventure

A New Start. Letting go of an old relationship

Moving on into a new phase of life means you can feel alive and be open to life’s new opportunities. To really open that door fully to a new life it helps to clear out and release the old. When it comes to relationships there is a time to clear out the debris for a fresh start. This meditation helps to deal with the internal issues.

Read this through first, then try it.

Close your eyes, and take several relaxing breathes.

Now imagine standing in a garden looking at a house, which represents your relationships with people. There is one roomfor each relationship. You are going to focus on the room that corresponds to the relationship you want to release and have closure on.

As you stand in the garden, notice the sky and the weather, which can reflect the energy of the relationship you are to deal with.

Imagine walking inside the house, and walking to the door of the room which represents the relationship you wish to release.

Open the door and take a look inside. Does the room feel fresh or musty, or is there another smell. Are there curtains, and are they drawn or closed. Is the room tidy or a wreck. The room holds in it items that represent the good and bad of the relationship; the ruined expectations, the promises kept and the promises broken, the good acts the unkind acts, the loving words and the hateful words, the happiness, the sadness, the times of loyalty, the betrayals, the broken dreams, the hurts, loss and grief, the angers, the lies, the misunderstandings, the things you wonder why they happened, the remnants of love, the good memories, the bad memories. Look at the items in the room and feel what they represent.

They are all going to go. You are going to clear the room entirely, take the items into the garden and create a huge fire to burn and release them.

See your self taking items out, and placing them to make a pile for a fire. Take out the hurts, the pain, the lies, the angers, the betrayals, the lack of love and the hate. Go back to the room and take out more items. Take down the curtains, bring them out to burn. Brush the floor, and take the sweepings and place them on the fire.

Clean out everything, and place it on the fire.

Go to the now empty and clean room. Close the door, and lock it. This is not an ordinary house, but one that represents your thoughts and feelings about relationships. This mean that the room can begin to shrink, and even disappear if need be.

Imagine walking back out to the garden, and notice the sky. In your hand is a lighter or match, which lights up. Place the flame to the pile of items and set them on fire. The flames grow and spread around the items. The flames burn them all, thoroughly, and the old energy goes up in smoke.

The flames leave only ash, which can over time be absorbed by the ground and reused by the garden. The old is gone.

Walk out of the garden, let the image fade.

Take several relaxing breaths, then open your eyes.

Should you feel you need to repeat this meditation, then you can.

There will be a room in the house which represents your relationship with yourself. You could go and place fresh flowers in that room and if you feel like it, redecorate and refurbish the room. You can be as imaginative as you like. Your subconscious mind can respond to that. (You can also improve other rooms representing other relationships as you wish.)

For FAQs about meditation, click here.

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

spiritualgrowthadventure

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.

spiritualgrowthadventure

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.

For FAQs about meditation, click here.

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


spiritualgrowthadventure

Karma, love and relationships

On social media there are posts from people who want a loving relationship, and they want to meet their Twin Flame, or their Soulmate. These are fairly recent fashionable labels in the history of spirituality. (It needs also to be said that some people are happy not being in a relationship and have no interest or need for one.)

The idea is that with a Twin Flame or Soulmate everything is going to be perfect. The connection is going to be deep, loving, spiritual and mystical, and give the person who wants this kind of relationship everything they want, when they want it, and how they want it. They are going to be so happy. All the time.

Sounds realistic?

It can be interesting to look at relationships through the lens of reincarnation and karma.

Before reincarnating back into the physical, a person will have gone through and reviewed their last life. With the help of spiritual helpers on the inner planes, and perhaps their guide, and possibly a spiritual Master, they will have a look at what they need to learn to develop spiritually. The spiritual helpers, the guide and any Master will be looking at the big picture which may include millions of lives into the future. They will help choose the karma for the next lifetime. They will help choose the karma that person will have including the karma to do with love and relationships. The aim of reincarnating time and again is to learn, develop understanding through experience, and so develop consciousness and become more loving. Life is a school. The spiritual helpers, guide and Master will help choose the gender and the personality to wear for the next lifetime. (You have many personalities through all the lifetimes and usually alternate gender according to the Law of Opposites).

There will be people in the person’s soul family that they tend to come down with into matter. They will come down at the same time to play their part in life. They will have the ideal karma, gender and personality to learn from as they come down as well.

The people you find around you have incarnated before with you, sometimes they have done this many times. Everyone plays different roles in different lifetimes, so two people will be siblings, parents, children, grandparents, friends and enemies. Many permutations of relationships get explored and karma either created or worked through.

When people reincarnate into physical reality again they (usually) go through amnesia so they don’t remember what was said on the inner planes and they don’t recall their last life. The amnesia helps because people just get on with life rather than have information and energy bleeding in that could interfere.

It’s all karma. Two of these people who came down round about at the same time will meet, gaze into each other’s eyes, fall in love and have plenty of energy going forwards and backwards between their chakras as their karma plays out and they form a shared timeline. It’s the best relationship ever, they think. It is not uncommon for two people to be married in past lives say twenty or thirty or so times. They really help each other learn about love and grow bit by bit in love and consciousness through those lifetimes.

Life, and karma is about learning, developing understanding through experience and then growing in consciousness and becoming more loving. The karma someone has, or two people have, may be just to have one relationship for that life. Possibly a very long relationship, where the personalities the souls are wearing match well, and where the personalities help them learn to love each other more.

The karma a person has may be for more than one relationship, perhaps several with all the other souls in the soul family that came down at about the same time. More than one relationship can be a preparation for the special, important relationship of that lifetime; people in the soul family help in the preparation for it.

There are so many different kinds of relationships, and so much to learn about love. It is worth remembering that the different scenarios are agreed Upstairs on the inner planes for each lifetime. Perhaps there was agreement Upstairs that when the two souls were in physical matter they would love each other and have a harmonious relationship, or perhaps they wanted to learn about making up after arguments, or they wanted to learn about self-love and get out of an abusive relationship, perhaps they wanted to learn how to forgive, or how to be compassionate, or selfless, or completely devoted, or mutually supportive and strong as a couple. Perhaps there is a need to learn (possibly lifetime after lifetime) how to look after the same person through terminal illness, or help them through addiction. Perhaps the relationship for one soul is to learn how to let in love, or to love.

Learning about love is definitely not always easy on the personality, even if there is a gradual increase in ability to love, and in consciousness along the way.

There is a difference between being in a relationship to get love and to let in love. There is also a big difference to getting love and being in a relationship to give love and be loving (though not at the expense of themselves, the exception being when one soul so loves another soul that they are willing to sacrifice their own physical existence to protect and save the other person).

Happy love and relationships.

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

about reincarnation karma gender and sexuality

about reincarnation, karma, law of opposites and experience

Karma: Why are things the way they are?

For FAQs about meditation, click here.

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

spiritualgrowthadventure

Spiritual, single, love wanted

I have seen many posts in spiritual groups on facebook that when someone becomes spiritual and sees themselves and the world differently than before, they find themselves isolated, alone and different to other people. Having been in a similar position quite a few years ago got me thinking what it was like for me.

Some people are OK being on their own (as one person told me: there is a difference to being alone, and being lonely). Some people want a companion to see the world at least partially as they themselves do and share the journey and have mutual support Some want the physical love and affection.

What is striking is the sense of isolation and of being different to others that waking up to a new way of being  incurs. It can feel disheartening and depressing.

What to do?

Some people might try to visualise and affirm they are going to meet the perfect person for them, and try to use laws of attraction and other energy techniques and ceremonies.

If meeting someone is in their karma then it will happen. If there is opportunistic karma it is going to happen, provided the person concerned does something. That something is highly unlikely to be staying in their room, flat or house. They have to get out into the world.

There is online dating, but dating services for spiritually inclined people are not massive, and it is worth remembering that your guide and your Higher Self wants you to get it right.

Most often people come across that wonderful special future partner when they aren’t making a special effort, they are instead being themselves, being content and happy, living a life that feels meaningful. They are not looking, searching or yearning for the person of their desires to plug a hole in their life. Neediness is a turn-off, and is not magnetic to attracting in a lovely person.

If  a person has a sense of wholeness (rather than holeness) they have a better energy that people pick up on. That other person senses the vibes in a couple of seconds and they do a quick, albeit usually subconscious scan with their third eye.

A relationship isn’t 0 + 1 = 1/2, where the person searching feels empty and is zero, and the other person of their dreams is the whole one. It is synergystic, where 1 + 1 = at least two.

Generalising, creating a life that you love is the first step to having something to offer.

Next step, step out into the world. Be yourself. For some people that can mean wear and look like whatever. Other folk might be more deliberate about this. Part of human nature is about highlighting your good points that you think others will appreciate that are a statement about yourself.

If you feel confident about going up to a stranger or aquaintance and striking up a conversation or asking them out for a date then great. (I only did this when exceptionally motivated though I reckon I was given a push by that lot Upstairs when they saw fit. Mostly I was far too shy.)

I lived in London, and there was / is a thriving spiritual and therapeutic culture, so it was easy to meet people. I used to go to workshops either to learn about an aspect of spirituality, or get some healing. I would also go on training courses to develop therapeutic skills. In those kind of settings I realised I got to know people. I would work with them, and at the breaks and mealtimes we would eat and chat, and if it was a long course, we would perhaps socialize as a group or perhaps I would socialize with one other person. It wasn’t a case of thinking about getting a girlfriend, it was about being in the moment and having a great time with some wonderful people. Some good friendships grew out of this, and also a couple of deeper relationships flourished over the years.

Thinking about today, not everyone will be living in a city or town with a lively spiritual scene. Then there is the internet. Great for contacting people all over the world, but not as great as being able to be physically with other people, or as great as having a lot of spiritually-minded people all together in a way they get to interact with each other.

For that to happen someone has to get the ball rolling to arrange physical meet-ups and events. Card reading evenings, sharing and meditation, group walks to spiritual sites, a meditation first and then a barbeque… There has to plenty of ways to get people together talking.

If you are out of your home, going someplace new, say being a visitor to a new place or being a tourist, you can meet new people. You could meet someone just right. It isn’t something that can be forced. If you are relaxed and going with the flow, and letting yourself be nudged by your intuition, then if it it is going to happen that you meet someone, you will.