37. The two legs of progress

NOTE: This is an excerpt from the book The Least You Should Know About Life.

This book has presented life as a process of spiritual evolution, a path that leads you to gradually reclaim your true identity as a co-creator with God. The key to this process is to rise above your human sense of identity and reclaim your spiritual identity. However, this is not a matter of a cosmetic make-over or a superficial behavior modification. It is a process that leads the Conscious You to overcome the illusion that you are a separate being who has been abandoned by God in a hostile world. Instead, your conscious self needs to grow into complete oneness with your own higher self, which then makes the Conscious You realize that it is one with its source and one with all life. Walking this path of oneness will, as a walk on Earth, require two legs, as described in this section.

Expanded awareness
Changing your sense of identity is not a mechanical process but a creative process that goes to the core of your being. It requires the Conscious You to expose the imperfect beliefs in the four levels of your mind and then replace them by consciously choosing the higher truth of the Christ mind. Thus, this part of the path requires you to expand your awareness, your understanding, of every aspect of life. And this requires study.

Obviously, this book does not claim that it can give you everything you need in order to complete this process. In fact, despite claims to the contrary, there is not one single belief system on Earth that can give you everything you need. It is not possible to set up a university course that will automatically take you from a human sense of awareness to a spiritual sense of awareness. Yet studying outer teachings can be an immense help, as long as you remember that unless knowledge is internalized, it will not change your life.

Thus, the purpose of study is not to acquire intellectual knowledge or to be able to recite passages of this or that spiritual text or religious scripture. An outer teaching must be approached as merely a tool for stimulating the inner, intuitive experiences that will give you integrated understanding and therefore empower you to truly rise to a higher level of consciousness.

What exactly should you study? Obviously you need to have a basic understanding of how the human psyche works. There are many popular books on psychology, self-help and even a spiritual perspective on the human psyche. It is also helpful to have a greater understanding of the physical universe, so some books on popular science should be considered. Finally, you need to know more about the spiritual realm, and there are many self-help or spiritual books that present such knowledge in a universal way, without tying it to a particular religion.

Which particular books should you study among the thousands of books available? Every person is a unique individual. Over many lifetimes, you have created your own personal blocks that must be resolved. Thus, your path is unique, and you should never fall into the trap of thinking that a particular guru, teaching or religious institution has everything you need. Instead, you should realize the truth in the old saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”

This does not mean that there is one ultimate teacher who can take you all the way home. For each level on the path you need a different teacher. Thus, you should never close your mind and think that you have to study only what comes from one particular source. Instead, realize that your real teacher is your Christ self who knows exactly what you need in order to take the next step on your path. Be alert and open to inner direction. Your Christ self will guide you to an outer teacher or teaching when you need it. The trick is to avoid closing your mind so that your conscious mind rejects or explains away your intuitive directions. Follow Divine direction – which always seeks to expand your awareness – not the ego’s direction – which always seeks to restrict your awareness.

Also be aware that resolving erroneous beliefs is somewhat similar to unlocking a lock. The erroneous belief is defined by using words. Thus, a particular combination of words can unlock your understanding and help you see the fallacy of the old belief and the truth of a higher one. This means that one book might contain the knowledge you need but it is not expressed in words that unlock your understanding. Thus, keep searching for a teaching that will unlock your understanding, and do not fix your mind on having any one teaching work for everything. If you will be alert to your inner direction, your Christ self will guide you to what you need at this particular point on your path. After all, you were guided to this book and you followed the direction.

Overcoming imperfect energy
While rebuilding your identity is a creative process, overcoming imperfect energy is – in some ways – a mechanical process. Karma from the past can be compared to owing money to the bank, it is a kind of debt to life. Thus, if you owe X amount of karma and pay back X amount, you have paid the debt and you are free to move on. Unfortunately, it is not quite that simple to pay back the karma you have created over many, many lifetimes.

Part of paying back karma is obviously to compensate for the selfish actions that have harmed other parts of life. This can theoretically be done by performing unselfish actions to cancel out or pay for the selfish actions. The problem is that you could have had many lifetimes in which you created selfish actions. Thus, it could be practically impossible to pay them all back in one lifetime. There is a truth to the Christian concept that without grace no person could be saved, meaning that no person could pay back all his or her karma without intercession from a higher power. If it were not for the setting aside of some of your karma, the forgiving of some of your debt, you could not pay back your debt.

This realization has led to the Christian doctrine that Jesus’ blood on the cross was the ultimate sacrifice that paid for humankind’s sins, not only the sins committed up until the time of the crucifixion but also all the sins that could possibly be committed thereafter. Yet consider why God or Jesus would ever want to hand humankind a blank check? What could people possibly learn if Jesus paid for all of their sins without requiring them to overcome the consciousness that caused them to sin?

This book has presented the universe as a science laboratory or a spiritual schoolroom. You are created with a limited sense of awareness, and you are meant to grow in awareness so you can exercise your creative abilities in harmony with God’s laws and thereby fill your role as a co-creator. You can learn in two ways, namely by seeing the consequences of your actions and by using your reasoning ability, guided by a spiritual teacher.

Yet if Jesus took away the consequences of your imperfect actions, how could you possibly learn from that? Jesus made it clear that abstaining from certain outer actions was not enough, for in order to be free of sin, you need to rise above the state of consciousness that caused you to sin. For example, it is a state of extreme selfishness that causes a person to kill another human being, and until the person has overcome that state of consciousness, he has not risen above the sin of murder.

Because of free will, neither Jesus nor anyone else can force you to make the choice to abandon the selfish state of mind. You must do this by making your own, fully conscious, choices. The point being that Jesus, your spiritual self and other spiritual Beings are fully capable of paying back your karma/sin. However, by law they are not allowed to do so until you have risen above the state of consciousness that caused you to commit a certain sin.

When you have left behind a limited state of consciousness, you have learned your lesson. Thus, there really is no point in you experiencing the consequences of your actions from many past lives. And it now becomes possible that your sin can be removed through the grace of a spiritual Being taking on your debt. As will be explained later, you are an extension of a spiritual Being that is part of a hierarchy of Beings that goes all the way back to the Creator. The sense of separation exists only in the human mind, whereas all spiritual Beings see the oneness of all life. Thus, the spiritual Beings that are part of your personal “family tree” see you as one with them, and they have no other desire than to see you grow in self-awareness. Thus, once you have learned your lesson, they will gladly pay back your karmic debt. Yet the law will not permit them to do so until you have risen above the consciousness that caused you to create the debt.

The point is that in the end, some of your karma/sin will be removed only through grace, through the intercession of a spiritual Being who serves as one of the spiritual teachers of humankind. However, this grace cannot be released until you have qualified for it by rising above a certain state of consciousness. And this presents somewhat of a catch-22, for if you are not aware of how karma works, it will be difficult to rise above the consciousness that caused you to make a certain karma.
Consider the earlier explanation that karma is a form of energy and that accumulated energy in your subconscious mind can exercise a magnetic pull on your conscious mind. If you have a lot of anger energy, it will pull you into responding to many situations with anger, whereby you misqualify more energy. In other words, once you have made a certain amount of karma, it predisposes you to make more karma. Thus, the key to turning your life around is to find a way to break this downward spiral. It is not hard to find examples of people who are so trapped in a self-destructive pattern that they seemingly have no power to break free.

The key to breaking a negative pattern is the realization that there is something you can do to transform imperfect energy. Thereby, you can reduce the magnetic pull until you get back control over your thoughts, feelings and actions. You can then start the upward spiral that raises you above the old consciousness, which then opens the way for grace to remove the rest of that particular kind of karma.

As has been explained, karma is simply misqualified energy, energy that has been lowered below the vibrational level of the pure spiritual energy that you received from your spiritual self. Yet this energy can be transformed or purified by raising its vibration, and the key is to invoke more spiritual energy. Physicists have proven that if a high-frequency energy wave collides with a low-frequency wave, the result is an interference pattern that has a higher vibration than the low-frequency wave.

The key to your freedom is to use a technique that is designed to invoke high-vibration spiritual energy and direct it into the low-vibration energy of your karma. This can consume the karma you have with yourself (what is stored in your energy field) and it can also consume external karma before it is returned to you and precipitates an unpleasant physical consequence.

Where do you find such a technique? For thousands of years, spiritual people have been aware that there is a specific form of spiritual energy that is designed to help co-creators in embodiment purify misqualified energy. It has been called grace, the Holy Spirit, the Violet Flame, Divine Love and many other names. The point is that many religions and spiritual traditions have techniques or rituals designed to invoke this form of energy. Even though you may not have been brought up with any knowledge of this, there is a wide variety of techniques from which to choose.

The important point is to find a technique that is efficient and that works for you at your present level of spiritual growth. Again, your inner teacher can and will guide you if you ask for direction with an open mind. The available techniques can be divided into the following categories:

• Prayer. If you truly attune your conscious mind to your higher self or a spiritual Being, this will release a stream of spiritual energy. However, true prayer is not the same as making a request to a genie in a bottle. True prayer is a prayer for guidance, an attunement to a higher Being and an affirmation of the conditions you want to see manifest. Expressing gratitude is an extremely efficient form of prayer. While a rote prayer will do nothing for you, a truly heartfelt prayer can be repeated on a regular basis because each prayer session will release a portion of spiritual energy.

• Affirmations. An affirmation is a short statement that affirms a positive reality and counteracts a negative illusion. For example, as a child you might have been labeled as stupid and you could counteract this belief with a positive affirmation, such as, “I am the infinite intelligence of my I AM Presence acting in my life!” Or you can affirm, “I AM the resurrection and the life of…” (name any circumstance, such as health or finances). Affirmations are most effective when spoken aloud.

• Visualization. A visualization is a kind of affirmation in the mind, but it is beyond words. You visualize a mental image of what you want to see happen in your life and then you affirm it as if it was a manifest reality. This can involve truly identifying, thinking, feeling and acting as the person you want to be. Always remember that the Conscious You acts as the kind of person it thinks it is. In the material world you are who you think you are.

• Physical exercises, such as yoga. The physical body is not separate from your energy field but is, in fact, the most dense part of your energy field. Therefore, it has long been known that certain exercises can open up a flow of energy from your higher self.

• Spoken rituals, such as chanting, spoken prayer, decrees or rosaries. As Genesis reveals, God used the power of the spoken word to create the universe, and the first act was the command, “Let there be light!” You have access to the immense power of using the spoken word to invoke spiritual energy and direct it into specific conditions. Such techniques can be found in several spiritual traditions.

Take note that it is the purpose of this book to present the most universal teaching possible, a teaching that can be helpful for people from many different backgrounds. Thus, it is not the purpose of this book to single out any particular teacher, belief system, organization or spiritual technique as being superior to others. Once again, let your inner teacher guide you. However, before you can receive such guidance you need to have some knowledge of what is available. And since most Westerners were not brought up with a knowledge of spiritual techniques and their true purpose, it is important to take an open-minded look at what is available and perhaps experiment with more than one technique.

It is also extremely important for a Westerner to adjust your thinking about spiritual techniques. In order to be most efficient, such techniques must be performed on a regular basis, which means a daily ritual. Since most people in the West were not brought up with a habit or incorporating a spiritual technique into their daily routine, this will require some retooling of your thinking and it will require both discipline and persistence.

Be aware that a spiritual technique can have certain short-term results but that the real results will take time to manifest. Modern technology and marketing has made many people believe instant gratification is a basic human right, and this mindset is completely counterproductive on the spiritual path. If you expect instant results, you will only set yourself up for frustration and disappointment. Many people have given up on the spiritual path because they started out with a set of completely unrealistic expectations.

Exercising a spiritual technique must be done with a long-term perspective. You are seeking to neutralize energy/karma that has been built up over many lifetimes. You are also faced with having to purify the three higher levels of your mind before you see physical results. Many people start using a spiritual technique with a desire to see a specific physical result. They keep doing it for a while, but when the results do not manifest, they give up—encouraged by their egos. Yet many people give up just before the results would have manifested in the physical realm. In other words, they did most of the work by clearing the three higher levels, but then they gave up just before they would have reaped the visible reward.

Be aware that although balancing karma and purifying negative energy can be seen as a mechanical process, no spiritual ritual will work against your free will. Before you can be free of negative energy, you must release it by forgiving yourself and other people. If you are not willing to let go, you can invoke spiritual light without having it consume the negative energy. Thus, it is possible to use a spiritual technique without getting results. This is not due to a flaw in the technique or the philosophy behind it but in your approach.

If you are not at the same time sincerely working on rising above the state of consciousness that caused you to misqualify energy, a spiritual technique will not have its full effect. Always remember that it is a poor craftsman who blames his tools. The smart craftsman works on himself and refines his ability to use the tool with the greatest possible effect.

38. A lifestyle not a quick-fix

Back to Main Page.

Back to top

Copyright © 2007 by Kim Michaels