Awareness as the Light of Life
Have you ever used PowerPoint? It is a wonderful piece of software that you can use to make all sorts of colorful and graphical slides. As each slide is displayed inside a projector, the powerful light from the projector, behind the image, projects the slide up onto a screen.
Imagine if Awareness had this light quality and that it beams out into the universe, through each of us. Perhaps we are like a slide. The beliefs we hold create the graphic that the light shines through. The resultant image that beams out in front of us is the reality we know as our life.
The slide is not made up of pixels, as it is in PowerPoint, but of beliefs. As the powerful beam of awareness energy shines through the beliefs, our reality creates out in front of us.
When we are a baby, with a small number of beliefs, we see all possibility out in front of us and we are amazed by it. But as we grow and take on more and more beliefs, the image projected out in front of us becomes more complex and chaotic.
And as we create experiences that we do not wish to take responsibility for, we begin attracting things of a similar flavor from other beings in our universe. As started so clearly by Harry Palmer, our Beliefs precede our Experiences.
The Path of Indoctrination:
As we grow we are instructed as to how to live, how to be. We are told what to do and what not to do. We are handed beliefs by the bucket load. We watch and observe others. Sometimes we choose to create certain behaviours to get our needs met. Perhaps our parents don’t give us enough loving and nurturing attention so we learn how to attract it.
As we grow, we choose to take on more beliefs. With each new belief we become a little more defined as an individual. Our collection of beliefs make us more and more unique.
From this point, a child no longer looks at people, things and events from a pure place with no opinions. The child begins to look through the filtration of beliefs. The connection and experience of the person, thing or event is no longer pure. It is laced with judgments and thought.
It is our layers of beliefs that lead us to think constantly. Instead of just observing things in our world, we are reacting to things in our world. As time goes on, we begin to do things that are out of alignment with our own integrity. When we do, we typically try to justify or rationalize what we did, but at another level we know what we have done. This creates further layers. Soon our mind is so busy trying to manage our life, reacting to belief and keeping wrong doings from being detected, that we have no more energy left to simply be and observe.
And all the while, some of us who have read enough books are telling others how they should live.
As time progresses we begin to believe the story we tell the world. We say things like, “I am too busy!” Or “I can’t afford it!” or “I have to work harder!” Soon these become the mantra of our existence and instead of being a free flowing spirit, we become a rigid, restricted, trapped person.
The brick wall you see in front of you is nothing more than the image of a limiting belief being projected from the depths of your own mind.
The Collective Hold Back
Most of us are ruled by our egos. The ego wants to keep things comfortable, keep things the way they are. Your friends’ egos don’t want you to change. They want you to stay the way you are. The same goes for family and people at work. Collectively everyone is striving to keep things predictable and comfortable.
Have you ever noticed that the only new inventions that ever really see the light of success are the inventions that add to our comfort or entertainment in some way?
But the challenge is this. Where are we headed? It is probably not a good place as environmental destruction and degenerative disease takes over. Really, it is degeneration on all levels, all around us.
What would happen if everyone around you was constantly encouraging you to transcend your boundaries and to strive toward your full potential? Then the world would swing around and move into an amazing new phase of existence.
The Path Out
The challenge now is to get back to the pure essence of the baby. That is the spiritual path, to get to that place where we can be in the world and hold a peaceful, observing presence, without thought, judgment or opinion. When we reach that place, our mind will be quiet and still unless we chose to use it. Our intuition flows easily and we can make decisions from a place of incredible awareness; knowing.
So how do we get back to that place? We are not Benjamin Button. We need to find a way to integrate all of our beliefs, make good on all the things we have done that are out of integrity and eventually still our minds.
The amazing thing is that some people can get to this place through a near death or otherwise traumatic experience. But I don’t recommend that as a solution. If we want to find our way back to the freedom of living a spiritual existence, we need to find a path.
This is where the spiritual practice comes in.
Now some Spiritual Practices were created centuries ago and don’t fit well in the 20th century. Most people feel they do not have the time to meditate, for example, for half an hour in the mornings and half an hour in the evenings.
Many religions struggle as they attempt to indoctrinate their followers with more beliefs. They perhaps make the journey more difficult as the followers try to adopt new beliefs and resist old ones. It can be a challenging process.
The Turning Point:
So back now to my story! As my reading expanded and my search intensified, I met many people. I did self development courses and searched the internet. Some of the courses left me feeling fantastic for several days, but then things gradually drifted back to the way they were.
Then one day I met a lady who seemed to have what I was looking for. She sat there and remained totally present, connected and emotionally available throughout our conversation. She listened as I talked and fully appreciated what I had to say. For the first time I felt I was having a conversation with someone who wasn’t trying to either compete with me or stroke my ego. It was a profound experience.
Later after leaving, I asked another person what that woman did and I was told that she was an Avatar Master. I had never heard of it and was told it was a sort of self development course. When I got home, I googled the course and read the website. It was intriguing although it did not give me any real data as to what the courses was about. So I registered anyway.
Four years down the track, being an Avatar Master is a major part of my professional life. Why? Simply because I found what I was seeking, a still mind, spiritual freedom, a calm and peaceful presence and an ability to look at life with amazement and appreciation, with no judgment.
Avatar is the study of and an exploration into the workings of human consciousness, using your own consciousness as a personalized case study. There is no belief presented that you should subscribe to. You simply use an incredible array of exercises to explore your own consciousness. The answers you find will be your answers.
Are you up for the journey of a lifetime? Enlightenment awaits!
Whatever path you choose, it may well be wise to start now. Times are changing. Who knows where the collective consciousness will lead us next? I do believe that if there is more compassion and forgiveness added to the collective, the direction will be more likely to be positive.
Before I finish I have one more question for you. Did your ego read this document or did you read it. My sense is that if your ego read it, you will very quickly have come up with a reason why you don’t need to explore Avatar. If you read it, I believe you will already be headed to the Website.
Avatar can be found at www.avatarpacific.com
You may wish to subscribe to The Avatar Times, a 26 edition Newsletter written by Harry Palmer that will certainly assist you on your journey. http://theavatartimes.com/
With much love, I wish you well on your journey.
John Toomey is one of Australia’s leading Health, Life Balance and Personal Development Speakers. Holding a Degree in Physical Education, John has worked in a number of diverse areas involving Health, Fitness and Sport. Since 1982, he has served either as a Conditioning Coach and/or Nutritionist to seven different AFL Clubs. He has also worked extensively in Australian corporations as a People Development Presenter, where he has presented over 1200 seminars in companies like BHP, Telstra, AON, ANZ, NAB, and Esso, and internationally. Further, John has lectured at many of Melbourne’s Universities in Physical Education, and at Monash University’s Department of Medicine where he taught Wellness and Lifestyle enhancement courses to Medical Students. He is a prolific writer and has been published in many professional journals and in daily newspapers and has served as a regular commentator on Health and Wellness issues on a variety of Australian radio stations. John is also a licensed Avatar Master and serves on a number of courses each year guiding students through an exploration of their own consciousness. Finally, John is also a popular presenter at many Australian conferences on Health, Wellness, Leadership, Occupational Issues, Health and Safety. John is also the author and creator of Australia’s first Certificate Course in Wellness.