This blog is only about awakening, nothing more, nothing less. Anything that will contribute to the possibility of complete liberation from the dream, or from the mass hallucination of humanity, or from the mental matrix, or from the false self, or from the lie, or any other label you want to call it, is welcome here. The key words are FREEDOM and JOY. Sometimes I think this reporting about stuff just keeps the false story going and only adds to the insanity, and there's too much of that already. But something is trying to pry the lid off still, something awaits to be seen. We are all in this boat together, so here we go......have fun!


Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

LOSE YOURSELF

 



LOSE YOURSELF

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself in this love.
When you lose yourself in this love,
you will find everything.

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Do not fear this loss,
For you will rise from the earth
and embrace the endless heavens.

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Escape from this earthly form,
For this body is a chain
and you are its prisoner.
Smash through the prison wall
and walk outside with the kings and princes.

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself at the foot of the glorious King.
When you lose yourself
before the King
you will become the King.

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Escape from the black cloud
that surrounds you.
Then you will see your own light
as radiant as the full moon.

Now enter that silence.
This is the surest way
to lose yourself. . . .

What is your life about, anyway?—
Nothing but a struggle to be someone,
Nothing but a running from your own silence.

~RUMI


Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Your “Shadow Self.” How To Face It, Bring It To Light & Transcend It

 




“What you most need will be found where you least want to look, but you have to look purposefully. If it chases you, then you’re the prey; if you confront it, you can transcend it.” – Jordan Peterson


There is a lot written about shadow and what it is. The direction is clear. Shadow is something we repress and hide from others, and in most cases, from ourselves. Where does it originate and what can we do to integrate or heal it?

Let’s begin by asking ‘why we have a shadow?’ Is it because we carry darkness at our core or does the shadow take shape over our lifetime as residue of fear, rage, shame and guilt, and their avoidance? I’d say a little bit of both. On the human collective level, we carry trauma related to suffering and aggression of our ancestors. But for the most part, our shadow develops during this lifetime in the form of a complex and sophisticated personality, that keeps us with a sense of control.


Deep down we feel vulnerable but try to hide it

Our inner world is complex and for some, unbearable. We continuously face and fear exposure of our contradictory complexity, towards ourselves and others. Instead of delving into the depth of our psyche and inviting more consciousness, we would rather guard ourselves. The more conscious we are, the more responsible we become for our actions. One of the reasons we so meticulously hide our shadow is because we don’t want to carry the consequence of our actions. And so, our vulnerability and shadow are closely linked.

There are many effective ways not to feel vulnerable and retain a sense of innocence. Abiding by a strict morality, adhering to ideologies, be they social, political or spiritual, or relying on religious dogma, all achieve exactly that protection. The kind of protection in which we cradle ourselves in feelings of righteousness and innocence. This is not to imply we shouldn’t seek for our actions to be moral or avoid believing but to become aware when they are used in service of feeling superior over others. Interestingly enough, our wish to remain innocent is a big shadow in and of itself.

So, while we’re busy repressing and controlling, the shadow feeds and grows with every attempt to fight off rejection, humiliation or punishment, as well as situations that leave us feeling guilty and ashamed

Here are some examples of how our shadow hides our vulnerability. Let’s say we want to be recognized for something we’ve done. Instead of asking for acknowledgment, we hide it through false humility and become resentful for not getting the attention we feel we deserve. Another example is our need to belong and be important to others. But again, instead of communicating this need, which makes us vulnerable to rejection, we make others feel important in the hope of being praised for our actions. Over time we’ve developed innumerable sophisticated ways to sugarcoat our shadows and feel in control.


Shadow integration begins with an honesty that seeks nothing in return

We can see, that most shadow has to do with survival attempts of some kind. This happens when we try to control our environments by behaving as victims, gaining respect through false humility, moral superiority and other forms of manipulation. When we talk about shadow integration, it’s crucial we are precise as to what the facets of our shadow are.

We want to, for example, be able to say, while refraining from any judgment, that ‘I smile at others, in order not to be attacked’ or ‘I control my partner by making him or her feel guilty’. Any judgment of what we discover in ourselves is a hidden attempt at victimizing ourselves and finding excuses. The ‘why’ is of secondary importance here, because the list of reasons is endless and the absolute source is difficult to pinpoint, but the urge to limit our vulnerability is still there.

This may be a good moment to say, that shadow integration is not about redemption, but about understanding the inner workings of vulnerability and protection, which are closely linked to our sense of survival, both physical and emotional.

Furthermore, we want to face our shadows, not to feel better or lighter in the future, but in order to become more integrated within ourselves and lessen the sense of separation that the shadow produces. We want to return integrity that comes with the responsibility of belonging to a history and culture that experiences a great deal of suffering and is greater than our individual selves. Integrating our shadow implies allowing the darkness to be part of us, without the desire to surpass it.


Drop the hope for a pain-free life

When we face our shadow, we want to fully own the aggression, fear, selfishness or greed living inside us. We want to clarify first and foremost to ourselves how we play power games and seek control. This acknowledgment doesn’t necessarily reduce the hurt to ourselves or others or enable us to change. There is no certain outcome from shadow integration and that’s a tough pill to swallow. What we’re ‘simply’ doing, is bringing something hidden to light, without the attempt to make it more or less significant or dramatic, but rather see it as it is, thereby becoming more aware.

The more emotionality we induce into the characterization of our shadow, the less integration takes place. Shadow integration should be a non-dramatic act, surrounded by a hint of coolness, where we observe who we’ve become. We will feel the pain of lies, betrayal and hurt to others during this observation. And in the process of doing so, holding back judgment, positive or negative, is truly challenging. How is it possible ‘not to comment’ on what we regard as a personal experience? We need to understand that any commentary also contains the attempt to change the experience, be it freeing or punishing to us.


Healing the shadow is a magical process in which we are the participant, not the director

The great challenge in shadow integration is to grow our capacity to be with or hold an experience without having the ability to change it. What has been done is in the past and can’t be undone; it can only be held and by holding it patiently, more facets can emerge and be seen. Like when a child injures itself, we can only hold them to share the pain of waiting for healing to take place, but the magic of healing has its own mysterious timeline.

When we own our shadow, it puts us in a helpless and humbling place. It shows us our limitations and that is something we don’t want to feel. Maximizing our potential for our own feelings of greatness is just another shadow. Acknowledging the limitation of our potential, without minimizing our strength or exercising false humility, allows us to share our light.

Life comes with a lot of limitations and the shadow tries to interfere with life itself. Facing our shadow is a spiritual act as we embrace and allow a little more of our human totality to be included. Through this experience, we can get in touch with a humility and simplicity, that can often touch something at our core, which is mystically meaningful and expanding.

Integration comes from a place that is non-dramatic, because drama always takes sides, and it makes us miss the simplicity lying in the acknowledgment of human complexity. Shadow integration is a lifelong and even a magical process. It happens when we are completely truthful, giving up all deals with God or fate, and surrendering to what we essentially are: vulnerable. We want to invite feeling the pain our shadow reveals to us without seeking redemption. In a way, every time we say yes to a shadow part in us, we agree to re-enter continuous vulnerability of being human.

This is where integration begins.

(CLICK HERE to keep reading...)


Sunday, January 24, 2021

The One’s Reunion With Itself



Ultimately sex doesn't come into its own till it is revealed as an aspect of the One's own joy in discovering and reuniting with Itself, disguised as the not-self or other - as one very special other. (Douglas Harding. Quoted in Seeing Who You Really Are by Richard Lang.)

Who after all, is here? Who is this Present-absent One, this No-thing, this 1st Person Singular, present tense? Haven't we decided that He is the one eyeless Seer, the one earless Hearer, the one tongueless Taster? He is also the one bodiless Lover! And just as the lover sees the beloved's face through a conceptual fog while he thinks he sees it with his eyes, and muffles the sound of her voice while he thinks he hears it with his ears, so he hardly begins to love her body while he thinks he loves it with his body. Only when he submits to being the One he really is - and she really is - does he know how to love that body, and know what sex is really about. In order to love it is necessary to be God, for God is love - and, not least, physical love. In order to be truly one with another it is necessary to be the One who is that other. (Douglas Harding. Quoted in Seeing Who You Really Are by Richard Lang)


Sunday, January 10, 2021

The True Lover

 


Reflection 163


Welcome!


The wonderfully strange and happy fact is that this Self-seeing (which is perfect anyway) self-forgetting: with the result that (for example) the once painfully-self-occupied public speaker, now wholly occupied with the audience, talks fluently and spontaneously and unanxiously; and the once painfully-self-occupied lover, now wholly occupied with the beloved, loves similarly well. In falsely self-conscious loving, which begins by being inefficient and ends by being impossible, each is using the other for personal satisfaction; each is attempting to enjoy his or her own body instead of the other's - so the enjoyment dwindles. In truly Self-conscious loving, on the contrary, each is the disembodied enjoyer of the other's body; each consciously makes way for and is occupied by the other, feels the other, knows (in the biblical sense) the other - and the by-product or bonus is that physical enjoyment flourishes, perhaps as never before. 

(Douglas Harding. Quoted in Seeing Who You Really Are by Richard Lang)

 
Please send your comments to Richard



Friday, January 8, 2021

Every Thought, Etched Upon the Sky...

 



Friday, January 8, 2021

A band of wanderers who traveled by thumb[1] or caravan to places they regarded as spiritually potent once gathered in the Tetons to Omfor world peace. They asked around for a tipi to use for the Om circles and somehow found me, and thus my tipi was enlisted for their mission. Among them was a songwriter whose haunting voice I can still hear, many decades later. Although her name is lost to me in the far canyons of memory, I still remember the lyrics she sang, which were something like this: “The world outside is a reflection of within. / We have the power to change it. / We can rearrange it.” Attempting to rearrange the “world outside” was the intent of those Om circles. 

When I was not on Teton trails or paddling the river, I joined the wanderers to Om a few times, entranced by the harmonics through which I sometimes heard clear voices that I could never identify, saying puzzling things like: I found them. Over hereHere they are. The seeming dedication of these wanderers to serving the world was so strong that when Anwar Sadat — the Egyptian president who had won a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a treaty between Egypt and Israel — was assassinated, at least some of the Om folks took it personally, rededicating themselves to “rearranging” the world within that gives birth (in this view) to the world “outside.” As far as I could tell, from their perspective, rearranging the world within was mostly supposed to happen on the “inner planes,” through Om-ing. 

From my viewpoint four decades later, I could not say that these wanderers were psychospiritually — or emotionally — mature (nor could I say that I was), though the Om practice did seem to offer, at least for moments, a palpable sense of peace and generosity of spirit, even compassion, toward others. The wanderers were the first spiritual seekers I’d encountered who believed — or who wanted to believe — that they were intimately connected with the unfolding of greater consciousness in the world, or with the devastating unraveling. Though even in those days, I recognized a shadow dissonance that I could not name when the seekers were soliciting money or food or airline tickets from folks with jobs rather than enacting their Om practice, I also found deep resonance with a possibility that my own manner of presence might be reflected in the “world outside” — a possibility that I was entangled in not only unspeakable beauty, but also in the aggression, rage, and divisiveness of human beings.

***

At the time, I was not familiar with the (apparently true) story that Jung was fond of telling about an old Taoist rainmaker who was called to a drought-stricken area in China. Upon arrival, the rainmaker asked to be left alone in a cottage outside the village. His meals were left outside the door. After three days in solitude, the clouds opened. When the old rainmaker was asked how he had delivered not only rain but also unseasonable snow, he declined to take credit for it. When further pressed, he offered his own explanation: “You see, I come from a place where the people are in order; they are in Tao; so the weather is also in order. But directly I got here, I saw the people were out of order and they also infected me. So I remained alone until I was once more in Tao and then, of course, it snowed.”[2]

***

I write these words the day after the U.S. Capitol building was breached by throngs of enraged people. I am enraged, too — and feel a strong, practiced impulse to loudly demean and violently condemn all those whose viewpoints and actions I find abhorrent. The “outer world” is in utter disarray with a radically divided populace, an on-going pandemic, climate instability, social and economic inequities, and more. It is easy to furiously believe that “those other people” are the ignorant, the deluded, the power-hungry, the “deplorables” or whatever other distinction I can identify separates them from me.  

And meanwhile, an immense psychospiritual drought withers all of the land. The world outside may be (at least in part) a reflection of within. Just now as I write, I remember a quote that was psychically-implanted long ago: “Think as if your every thought were etched in fire upon the sky for all and everything to see. For so, in truth, it is.”[3] Do I dare to bring to consciousness the tyrants, insurrectionists, enablers, entitled ones, perpetual victims, indoctrinated conformists, know-it-alls, or heartless ones that are hidden (or maybe not so hidden) in my manner of presence, in my psychic habits, in my way of being in the world? 

Over hereI found them. Here they are.

***

Of course it’s not enough to shudder with recognition when we encounter the deplorable in ourselves; of course it’s not sufficient to only Om for the world. But perhaps when we find the top-secret chambers where the tyrants, victims, conformists and others hide, we might hear and feel the tremendous grief cry that we share with all of those who are broken, lost, betrayed, oppressed, repressed, and trying to survive in worn-out systems that depend on pitting human beings against each other. From that recognition, we might find a way toward common ground.


Wednesday, December 16, 2020

The Handling of Chaos: Motion Through Stillness

 



Commentary by TLB Staff Author: Lucille Femine

The planet being in terrible turmoil and confusion, what do most people do – myself included, though I strive to overcome it? We accept it while we insist: We will not accept it!

In other words, we resist and that is the road to the acceptance of misery, confusion and unhappiness. How can that be if we resist it? Well, our all too frequent reaction is really emotion of various kinds – anger, fear, hopelessness, grief, etc, exactly what the chaos is designed to create.

What happens then? We feed the chaos with all these emotions and it grows – like raising a child with hate and they become hateful. And the perpetrators of the chaos smile and think they have won. They think they have overcome their own deep-seated and shallow fear and hate has been overcome by holding the “enemy” at bay or destroyed. Now THAT’S a miserable life. Much worse than yours.

We engage in all kinds of activity to beat these evil forces – from reading and commenting with protests, opinions, letters to political leaders, writing articles as I do, etc. There is absolutely nothing wrong with these things and much needed.

But where should these activities come from? That is my gist and I will try to explain it to myself as I write to you. You see, that is part of the plan. The less we think, the more we know, even when putting and trying to put cohesive words on paper and cyberspace. It appears to be very analytical. But truly I had no idea what words and concepts I would write until I began to write them. And I refrain as much as possible from “thinking them up” before I type. 

This practice of reducing thoughts to a bare minimum (needed to wash dishes, go shopping and all that) should never be considered a “blank mind” in the traditional sense of the word – like stupid. That label has been administered by schools and families who stress that we need to accumulate “facts” as the estimation and growth of intelligence and ability to function.


Surely data is needed to get along in our day to day lives. But what comes first? Silence and stillness. In other words, lose your mind with all its pictures, words, worries, pains, conflicts, all from the past. What remains? The powerful essence of you in the present moment. We call it many things – God, the Supreme Being, the spirit, etc. All it is, really, is you in the moment, this moment as you read this.

What do we do in this state of mind – or no mind? We simply know and experience not only our true self but our environment, our world.

What does this mean in terms of the chaos and danger around us? We simply stay in the present moment as we read, study and experience this chaos and not allow ourselves to “be” the chaos, to succumb to it as though it is real or even inevitable. By agreeing to it all, we recreate in our minds and then in our lives and then in our environment and it becomes real.

(CLICK HERE to continue reading)


Monday, December 14, 2020

Your Body is Sacred: 3 Ways to Practice Embodied Spirituality

 


By Aletheia Luna

Guest writer for Wake Up World

Since the very beginning of all religious and spiritual drive, there has been a deep prejudice against the body.

The body has been called carnal, worldly, lustful, sinful, and illusory. At best, it has been thought of as mere dust, at worst, it has been thought of as a doorway to the devil himself.

What’s worse is that when the body has been celebrated (such as in many neo-tantric practices), it has been fetishised and in some ways objectified.

There’s no doubt about it: we’ve had a weird relationship with the body as a species.

On one hand, we either condemn it and try to subjugate it – on the other hand, we indulge it to the extreme. We tend to swing from one side to the other, never seeming to find a middle ground.

Thankfully, times are changing. We’re sick of treating our bodies as flesh suits to be ascetically denied or endlessly satiated. Instead, we’re beginning to understand and respect our bodies’ wisdom, intelligence, and profound connection to the truth of reality.

We’re starting to see that the body is a sacred doorway to the Soul and the sacred wild Spirit of Existence. 

But as always, seeing our bodies as sacred is not easy. There are layers upon layers of inherited beliefs, prejudice, and wounds that obscure our ability to see clearly. Not only that, but modern spirituality – with its tendency to emphasize disembodied “transcendence” – can make it extra hard for us to come into a healthy relationship with our bodies. This is why embodied spirituality is so desperately needed.

What is Embodied Spirituality?

Embodied spirituality refers to a lived experience of spirituality that is grounded in the body. When we embrace embodied spirituality, we come out of our minds and back into our bodies: into that which is visceral, instinctual, and deeply felt through the senses. We see that the body isn’t just a temple of the Divine, but a living expression of Spirit. As such, the body becomes a source of tremendous wisdom and insight: a doorway to the present moment. Not only do we see the body as sacred, but we see it as a microcosm of the macrocosm – it becomes a path to both the transcendent and immanent nature of the Divine.

Your Body is a Storehouse of Trauma 

As psychiatrist Bessel Van Der Kolk writes in his book The Body Keeps Score:

The body keeps the score: … the memory of trauma is encoded in the viscera, in heartbreaking and gut-wrenching emotions, in autoimmune disorders and skeletal/muscular problems

Renowned psychologist and trauma-expert Peter Levine goes on to write:

Traumatic symptoms not only affect our emotional and mental states, but our physical health as well.

And as psychotherapists C. Zweig and S. Wolf write:

We may forget an abuse, but the body does not. Like shock absorbers, our bodies absorb the wear and tear of emotional experience. We may defend against it, but our bodies take the heat. And slowly, over years, the patterns of stress and trauma accumulate. Inevitably, if we do not become conscious of the shadows lodged in our muscles and cells, they begin to tell their tales. 

As we can see, body and mind are not separate. Whatever painful experiences we undergo in life are stored within our bodies as trauma. This trauma manifests as muscle tension, mysterious aches and pains, ‘body armoring’ and holding patterns, autoimmune disorders, and endless other illnesses.

Without unpacking, exploring, and releasing what’s within our bodies, we remain frozen and unable to move forward. This is the first reason why developing a friendly approach to our bodies is crucial – it is a core element of spiritual healing and transformation.

Your Body is a Gateway to Spiritual Wisdom

Our bodies are also a storehouse of great wisdom.

As the great German philosopher Nietzsche once wrote:

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

And as Buddha once said:

The body is anchored in the here and now while the mind travels into the past and future.”

Although at a core level, we aren’t defined by our physical blood and bones, our bodies are an undeniably powerful gateway to the present moment. Not only do they anchor us into the Eternal Now (hence why many meditation techniques focus on the breath and body), but they are also insanely accurate truth-detectors. They help us to both tune-into what is true and real, on a visceral felt-level, and what is false.

Indeed, our bodies are great and multi-layered gifts. They carry an intelligence that predates the mind and an intuition that is directly aligned with the Soul.

As mythopoetic author and psychologist Marion Woodman writes,

This is your body, your greatest gift, pregnant with wisdom you do not hear, grief you thought was forgotten, and joy you have never known.

There is so much potential for healing, revelation, integration, and regenerative grounding on offer when we honor the body; when we practice embodied spirituality.

But … where do we start?

(CLICK HERE to continue reading...)


Monday, December 7, 2020

REVERED AYAHUASQUERO TAITA JUANITO HAS AN ESSENTIAL MESSAGE FOR THOSE STRUGGLING DURING THIS CRISIS

 


Dylan Charles, Editor

When I look at people’s faces covered in masks, I try to discern from their eyes alone what they are feeling. And it’s tough.

But, it’s tough not because you can’t see their whole faces, it’s tough because people everywhere are hiding their whole selves behind their egoic masks of confidence, surety, and stoicism. They are hiding their true feelings, their pain and their suffering from the world.

We are all experiencing unprecedented stress, loneliness, anxiety, worry, and uncertainty right now. And in this climate, it’s very easy for the mind to take you in to fear. Fear of what’s happening now, and fear of what is to come.

But these feelings aren’t the whole story. They don’t represent the deepest truths about our lives.

The fear is a finger pointing at the moon. Pointing to something so big that we can’t see it right in front of our eyes. Yet here there is a truth much greater and far more powerful than all the fear in the world combined. And when you connect to this truth, your power and your smile return.

Speaking in a recent online conference, revered AyahuasqueroTaita Juanito shares a powerful message for all people who are experiencing these challenges right now. It’s a message that gets lost in the clutter and flash of an info-drenched and drama-craving world, but it is so simple and pure, that when you open your heart to it, it cuts right through everything else.

I hope you are doing well, but if you’re struggling right now, give some consideration to Taita Juanito’s words here, and please share them with those you know who are also in need of such a reminder.

The following transcript was taken from an interpreter to Taita Juanito in a recent presentation by Canta Con Amor 2020:

“All people that are going through difficulties, we send you many blessings, because you are our family. All of us are connected. Now, in this time it is different for all of us. Some of us have practices and medicines, and this is good. Continue practicing your spiritual path, and you can consult plants at home. But another part is that some of us don’t have spiritual practices. We’re in sadness. There’s absence in their life, in their heart. And for all of you experiencing this absence in your heart, please understand  that you have never been alone. Always, there is something greater, bigger, deeper, which is the Great Spirit. You have to connect more. You, who are experiencing absence, open your heart.

Some say that you need faith. We say you need to find balance in this time, because for those that have a spiritual path and for those that don’t, there is a lesson for both. First, never feel alone, because when you close your eyes and you feel the vibration of nature, the Spirits of nature, and the Great Creator, there, automatically you’re not alone. It’s a limiting belief that is taking you there.

For you, we pray for you, and you should pray as well, from your heart. And if you have plants, do plant baths. Share this time with your family, your children, your friends, because all this is teaching us community. We run around too frequently, searching for money, or things that we may need or want, but then we forget to live life. So now you have this chance. Live life. Live intensely, asking the Creator and nature.

The plants have always been here when you place a good intention to a bath or steam bath with plants, or you have a visionary plant, ask of the plant, and the plant will always show you the door. This time is a gift. Many people might see it different, but when we go to the deepest aspect, there’s an ecstasy, a vibration of energy, of light.

A few days ago I drank medicine and I was asking, and what I saw was a world full of vibration, full of colors, and we were observing it, and I was asking why are you showing me this? And it said to me, ‘you, humanity have to be here, in this world of vibration with nature.’

It’s always been her for you. The spirits have always been here. You might call them Guardians, Angels, or Guides, but they have always been here. We have to ask from them, ask your Guardian, ask that energy of Spirits, the Angels, to come and change your memory through a prayer, through a fast, to strengthen you.

All this fear, this absence that I feel, it is only a limiting belief which is coming, and all things which come to your life, they are for something. They will bring you strength, they will bring you study. What is this experience teaching you? What does it want to say to you? And there we connect with the art of life, the art of feeling.

This is why the Creator gave us our senses, eyes, mouth, nose, ears, skin. Activate it. Activate the listening. It’s important to listen to the heart and to listen to all the energy of the Spirits.”

(CLICK HERE for more...)

 

Monday, November 30, 2020

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

RUDOLF STEINER DESCRIBES THE HOSTILE SPIRITUAL BEINGS WHO FEED OFF YOUR FEAR AND ANXIETY

 


Dylan CharlesEditor

Anxiety, depression, and fear ravage so many today, but few pause to consider that in addition to the material influences in our lives, we may be also under the influence of beings which exist in dimensions outside of our ordinary perception.

But there is much more to reality than what we can see. feel, hear, taste and touch. In fact, an accounting of the matter that makes up the universe reveals that some 73% of it is made up of dark energy, and another 23% is made up of dark matter, neither of which can we see, nor understand. Furthermore, the human eye is only capable of seeing around .0035% of the entire spectrum of electromagnetic (EM) radiation. When we look into the heavens, 96% of it is invisible to us. Include in this the spiritual realms and there is an entire universe of possibilities which exists beyond our five senses.

Very few scientists today are willing to explore metaphysics to examine life beyond ordinary perception in order to make a connection between the seen and the unseen.

Rudolf Steiner, though, one of the most prolific and gifted scientists, philosophers, and esotericists of his time, devoted much of his work to the task of peering behind the veil, sharing his insight into the deeper nature of life and of the world beyond.

Regarding anxiety and depression, Steiner spoke of hostile beings in the spiritual world which influence and feed off of human emotion; a concept flatly rejected by most today. Yet this also analysis holds true for shamans and others who access the spiritual dimensions in order to alleviate mental suffering for their patients.

Many are familiar with the notion of energy vampires, or people who suck your energy and feed off your negative emotions. On the existence of similar entities which exist in other dimensions, Steiner wrote:

“There are beings in the spiritual realms for whom anxiety and fear emanating from human beings offer welcome food. When humans have no anxiety and fear, then these creatures starve. People not yet sufficiently convinced of this statement could understand it to be meant comparatively only. But for those who are familiar with this phenomenon, it is a reality. If fear and anxiety radiates from people and they break out in panic, then these creatures find welcome nutrition and they become more and more powerful. These beings are hostile towards humanity.

 

Everything that feeds on negative feelings, on anxiety, fear and superstition, despair or doubt, are in reality hostile forces in supersensible worlds, launching cruel attacks on human beings, while they are being fed. Therefore, it is above all necessary to begin with that the person who enters the spiritual world overcomes fear, feelings of helplessness, despair and anxiety. But these are exactly the feelings that belong to contemporary culture and materialism; because it estranges people from the spiritual world, it is especially suited to evoke hopelessness and fear of the unknown in people, thereby calling up the above mentioned hostile forces against them.” ~Rudolf Steiner

Negative emotions are food for inimical spirits. 

A concept such as this isn’t readily accepted into the everyday conversation steered by rigid skepticism and scientific materialism. The traditions of today have sought to expel ancient metaphysical wisdom and its practical application from our lives, and though scientific inquiry is exceptionally valuable, spiritual perception has always been a part of our experience.

“And yet, despite the cynical skepticism, all of the ancient mystery schools, true shamanic insights, and esoteric teachings (much of which have been suppressed and/or distorted over thousands of years for obvious reasons) have conveyed this truth for ‘the ones with eyes to see and ears to hear’, using their own language and symbolism, be it “The General Law” (Esoteric Christianity), Archons (Gnostics), “Lords of Destiny” (Hermeticism), Predator/Fliers – “The topic of all topics” (Shamanism, Castaneda), “The Evil Magician” (Gurdjieff), The Shaitans (Sufism), The Jinn (Arabian mythology), Wetiko (Native American Spirituality), Occult Hostile Forces (Sri Aurobindo & The Mother, The Integral Yoga), etc.” ~Bernhard Guenther

(To Continue Reading, CLICK HERE)