This week I have been reading "Wonders of The Natural Mind" by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, a master in the Tibetan Bön tradition who was born and raised in India, of a Tibetan family. When he first began teaching Westerners, he noticed something which I find interesting: he was struck by how 'lightly' we treat sacred teachings and our 'superficial' approach to them. He saw how we don't commit ourselves deeply to such practices as yoga, by devoting our time and energy to them, and approaching them as a true path to spiritual experience. And it's true. We go to a yoga class, maybe once or twice, and we treat it like a hobby.

I think this happens for two reasons. First we don't really understand that yoga, meditation, and similar practices really ARE proven paths to deeper spiritual experience and secondly, most of us can't even imagine what 'spiritual experience' really is! Even though, in his book "Waking From Sleep", consciousness researcher Steve Taylor explains that every one of us has at one time or another had what he describes as a 'spiritual experience' in that we have experienced an altered state of consciousness of some kind. Then we forget about it and go back to our daily lives. We treat our deeper experiences as something transient, and not something we can make permanent in our lives.

In a previous newsletter I mentioned that M. Scott Peck, author of "The Road Less Travelled", chose that title for his book because as a therapist he noticed that most of his clients wanted a 'band aid'. They wanted a quick-fix, to just feel a little better, so they can continue their lives as 'normal'. Less than 10% of us are interested in going all the way to personal transformation and personal 'direct experience' of our spiritual nature. I believe this is because we don't know it exists. We hear about it, but our personal experience has been so fleeting, so transient, that we're not sure what we experienced or if we even imagined it.

So we 'keep calm and carry on' …and if we happen to have a sudden awakening, conversation with God, or instant miraculous enlightenment - that will be a bonus! We either don't know, or believe, that any action on our part, can lead to a more permanent state of 'awakening'. As Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche observed:


In my case this was certainly true. I thought if we are 'spiritual beings' and we are awakening anyway, like a flower unfolding, then there's nothing to do. In a sense, this is also true, but there is the factor of time, and our social conditioning. If you plant a rose bush where the conditions are wrong, your roses may not open and bloom. If your own 'conditions' are wrong, you may not open and bloom. Not in this lifetime anyway!

The deeper practices allow us to create the right conditions to accelerate our own spiritual unfoldment. I realised this by going deeper on my own journey - and noticing the increased sense of inner peace and deeper connection to self. I walk through the world from a more centred place and am less likely to get knocked off balance.

There IS something we can do to change our conditions and give ourselves a better chance not only at waking up, but also at deepening our connection to core self and a deep sense of inner peace. I began my journey by working with my mentor Anya Sophia Mann who calls her work the Conscious Journey. Through working with her on a one to one basis, and by attending weekend 'emotional release' retreats with her, I was able to go deeper and deeper on my journey releasing blocks and limiting beliefs and, as she says, "creating the space for something to be different". In other words, changing the conditions.

Now there is an opportunity for you to do the same. Over many years Anya has been developing programs in 'self-mastery' which are designed to support you in going as deep as you need to go on your own journey. From my own experience I know the power of this transformational work and highly recommend it. I'm often asked how I know what I know - how can I interpret astrology in the way that I do. The answer is simple: when you go deep on your own journey, you have a deeper understanding of energy, which means a deeper understanding of the foundation of astrology (which is a language of energy).


That's all for now see you next time, and in the meantime... happy exploring!

Best Wishes,

Ruth