"At first you may find that the more you act on your intuition, the more things in your life seem to be falling apart - you might lose your job, a relationship, or certain friends, or your car might even stop working! You're actually changing rapidly and shedding the things in your life that no longer fit. As long as you refused to let go of them, they imprisoned you. As you continue on this new path, following the energy moment by moment as best you can, you will see new forms begin to be created in your life - new relationships, new work, a new home, a new form of creative expression, or whatever. It will happen easily and effortlessly. Things will just fall into place, and doors will open in a seemingly miraculous way. You may have times when you will just go along, doing what you have energy to do, and not doing what you don't have energy to do, having a wonderful time, and you will, literally, be able to watch the universe creating through you. You're starting to experience the joy of being a creative channel!" - Shakti Gawain
My fourth attempt in one new important area of life failed miserably after the previous three failed attempts. I suddenly realized that the common denominator among these four was my egoic desire to control other people. This realization also made me realize that I had been trying all my life to egoically control everyone and everything in my life. Naturally, this control didn't bring me any positive result. My desire to control my ex-wife and ex-students ended in divorce and incessant wars respectively. I've surrendered.
I've decided to flow with the soul in life in general and in this new area of life in particular. Actually I already experienced such flow in my life at least several times. Then I simply stopped thinking (egoically), was at my best, and attracted people and things that aligned with my state of consciousness.
Paradoxically, the biggest obstacle to flowing is making an effort. What is required instead is the so-called effortless effort, which is to be in a natural state of the soul. Of course, this is easier said than done. Like many other people I'm also inundated with involuntary thoughts incessantly, but unlike before I'm not indentified with them. My practice of mindfulness meditation seems to have helped me disidentify with my egoic thoughts.
Though I stopped practicing my daily mindfulness meditation, I still consider daily meditation as one of the most important foundations for flowing with the soul. Some time ago I switched to breathing meditation. This week I encountered and started practicing True Meditation by Adyashanti. It's the most pristine meditation I've encountered so far and meant for helping meditators flow with the soul. Tami Simon, editor of this book, defines True Meditation as follows: "True Meditation has no direction, goals, or method. True Meditation is abidance as primordial consciousness. True Meditation appears in consciousness spontaneously when awareness is not fixated on objects of perception." Please don't try to understand these sentences conceptually as this will lead you to the very oppositve of True Meditation.
I've also enrolled in a forthcoming eight-week online course by Eckhart Tolle on the application of this idea in our life, whether private or professional. He calls this application "conscious manifestation". This approach may sound woo-woo to those who believe in control and manipulation as the best way to realize their desires. The more I read about topics related to "conscious manifestation", the less appealing I find this latter approach.
The former approach, which is new to me, is also in tune with the message I recently received from my "loving guides" and partially shared in this blog about a month ago, especially: "Your first job, your most important job is to heighten your vibration at all times; bring yourself into a place of peace and joy through 'whatever' manner you choose you will see that your outer world MUST match it."