Purification of the Heart

Feelings derive from our heart space and have a greater power than our thoughts. We need to focus on our emotional world just as much, if not more than our mental world. Emotions are the means to manifest desires. Thus purity of heart should be considered a necessity. One cannot live long with a tainted heart and the longer we allow psychic garbage to collect within our heart space the more our emotional, spiritual, physical and mental bodies will suffer. A tainted heart is something that all should strive to avoid because it is the smearing of your true self.

“As rust is natural to iron and as milk turns sour, so the feeling of the heart which by nature is as pure as milk, turns when it becomes rusted.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan

The transformation of the natural to the unnatural is a process that takes time. Slowly the innocence fades into nothingness as our heart goes sour. This is imperative to understand because it reveals to us all that this process of souring occurs over a duration of time. We can see that our innocence is intact at the beginning of life, but as we grow older and live a life many of us start to rust, thus our spiritual heart suffers greatly. Once this happens it is very difficult to turn things around, to restore oneself.

The way to cleanse our heart is to submerge it in the stream of love. A continuous inflowing of love will help heal our heart. This means we have to be willing to receive this love because that’s the problem many of us face. It’s not that love isn’t sent in our direction, but instead, it’s our inability to absorb this love that keeps us in a lack of it. Love is constantly flowing from the Creator to us, but because of our free-will and ignorance many of us cannot take in this love. We’ve hardened our heart with so much fear that it’s a very difficult task for love to penetrate.

Allowing love to enter one’s being is much easier than what we believe it to be. It can be simply described as being present in the Eternal Now. The Eternal Now is where you reside at all times, it is beyond the concept of time/space, thus it is the aspect of your being that exists in another realm of existence. This is where your higher self-resides and this facet of your being has the capacity to give you all the love you need. How do you become present in the Eternal Now you may be wondering, three words sum it up quite well; Love, Acceptance, and Joy. By accepting yourself and life you allow love to flow, by loving yourself and others, you allow love to flow, by being joyful to yourself and others, you allow love to flow. These three traits are invaluable when beginning the journey to self-empowerment.

“For it is the good quality of heart that will keep away undesirable impressions and thoughts, so that the heart will only reflect good impressions and desirable influences.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan

Only by nurturing the good qualities within ourselves will we be able to prevent the rust from settling within and around our heart. Good qualities are pretty self-explanatory, anything that makes you feel good and wholesome. Such as love, compassion, acceptance, joyfulness, and forgiveness. These qualities allow love to be channeled into every fiber of our being. This divine love will enrich our aura and allow healing to take place on the many subtle levels of being. The practice of mantras can assist in this endeavor and one mantra that Hazrat shares is the following:

“My thoughtful self! Reproach no one, hold a grudge against no one, bear malice against no one; be wise, tolerant, considerate, polite, and kind to all.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan

The need to remove and erase every undesirable impression is paramount in cleansing one’s heart. That means we need to be brave enough to explore aspects of our being that have been neglected for a great many years. We cannot think that we can just be positive and that will suffice, one must dive deep within their own consciousness and locate the darkness and negative impressions we’ve allowed to fester in our ignorance and lack of awareness.
READ: The 3 Lies That Block The Flow of Love

When one begins to locate their own various character flaws and fears, we are provided with an opportunity to transform them into assets (Divine Love). Only by becoming aware of these negative impressions can this be done. Thus one should take the time to think about his/her state of being, mental processes, and unconscious aspects whenever possible. Many of us are stuck in reactionary mode, we don’t quite understand why we do what we do or feel what we feel. Much of this has been programmed into our unconscious and subconscious minds without much awareness on our end. We pick up most of these learned behaviors from our parents, TV, school, media, internet, etc….

A perfect example of a programmed response is something along these lines. Let’s say you’re having a discussion with someone about UFOs and extraterrestrials, you start to make a claim and the individual whom your speaking to reacts very hostile and skeptical. They’ve been programmed with stereotypes that tell them that UFOs and extraterrestrials are absurd. This is a perfect example, because even though the person hasn’t done the research himself/herself they still react negatively. I’ve encountered this many times since my awakening and most of the time when I try to express to them the need to discover the truth themselves, they still dismiss it and choose ignorance. This is a reactionary behavior, we’ve been bombarded with so much fear that we perceive our reality through the modality of negativity. Thus everything is misconstrued to satisfy this bleak outlook we’ve incorporated into our belief system.

Many would rather be deceived rather than know the truth because they’re afraid of the prospect of being lied to. We have this fear of being wrong as if it invalidates who we are. We don’t want to believe that things could possibly be that bad, that our government would lie to us, that people would kill to get what they want, and corporations would suppress technology that would benefit mankind. This is reinforced by our fear of change as well, the prospect of many UFOs, extraterrestrials, free energy theories being correct would change the world. They subconsciously resist it because of the fact they’ve invested so much into this false paradigm.

That is the type of behavior we must become aware of within ourselves, we need to dive deep into these beliefs and discover the root cause. Upon exploration of my inner-world, I discovered that I was skeptical of a great many things because of fear. Fear is the reason many people choose ignorance, because as the saying goes, “Ignorance is bliss” and it’s easier for many to deny something than to confront it. We’ve been conditioned to resist change, especially if it differs from our reality in such a dramatic display. When I discovered this within myself, it suddenly opened the doors to my real self and I’ve learned a great deal since then. This can only be achieved if you have the willingness to explore oneself.

Hazrat emphasizes the need of developing innocence. Not innocence in the sense of avoiding being at fault, but instead, innocence in the sense that your desire is to be your real self. Our innocence is reproached upon when we give into the ideas of our synthetic self. The synthetic self-identifies with things of this world, constantly attempting to build its kingdom upon quicksand. As you all will no doubt learn over time, any attachment to this world will not satisfy one’s soul. This world is based upon the principle of impermanence, all shall return to the earth. Our bodies will decompose, our money will turn to dust and our thoughts will become psychic dust.

Innocence is a state of being that embraces the constants in life. When one firmly plants their feet on the immutable constants, innocence will increase. Loving, listening, accepting, appreciating and assisting others is the pathway to innocence, these are the constants that will assist thee. Bear no homage to the ways of cleverness, for they seek nothing but a worldly knowledge that can benefit oneself. To be clever is to identify with one’s own mortality. Cleverness is a trait that is fleeting and temporal, eventually, it shall fade back into the black or you will encounter someone who is more clever than yourself. Time diminishes cleverness, with age does one’s intelligence and cleverness start to wane. Thus it is a self-defeating delusion of attempting to gain significance within the temporal plane of existence.

“The innocent are oftener blessed by Providence than the worldly-wise who are always trying to get the best of everyone and to seize every opportunity that may seem in any way advantageous.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan

He who develops innocence is truly capable of removing the fear from the lives of others. Only they are able to bridge the gap between fear and love for their fellow brothers and sisters. They who are innocent within the heart are the shepherds that shall lead humanity once again to freedom. The clever and worldly-wise cannot do so, because they operate upon this plane of existence, while they who are innocent dwell within the consciousness of the divine. Only through the innocent shall the lost be found,only through the heart shall we be freed from the chains of fear.

“Purity of heart is the only condition that allows the inner stream to rise. The pure-hearted see more deeply, though they say little.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan

Through innocence, we rise through the different octaves of our being. Slowly ascertaining to who we are, why am we’re alive and what is the purpose of life.By purifying our hearts we get closer to these inner truths. Within us lies the answers to all our questions. Purification of the heart and development of innocence allows these answers to come into our awareness. This is the journey all must eventually embark upon in order to return to the source. Unavoidable this is, because in the end; we’re all One.

The De-Conditioning of the Ego

What could a person possibly gain from insecurity? What could be the reward of feeling undeserving? Why would we harbor low self-esteem? Why do we think against ourselves? These states are not natural to our essence or inner being, so why… where did the urge to give away our power come from?

I grew up in the American Northeast, in a place where people worked very hard for not a lot of reward. And yet, I can’t remember a single instance of a farmer or my middle-class family saying ‘I deserve’ a better life. Everyone I knew behaved as if self-denial was humble and spiritual and a sign of goodness, and ‘I deserve’ was presumptuous and greedy.

It’s the ego that makes these comparisons. Ego identity comes with the situation we’re born into, formed by interacting with who and what is in our world, and by what works for us as we go out into our world. It’s the character we think we are, the separate I and me, as we deal with others.

This is just a guess, but I’m thinking the inferior ego of my early upbringing could be a very old pattern, related to the class system. These farming and middle-class families are descendants of European immigrants, pioneers to the Midwest. They brought their cultures, Christian religion, and languages with them, as well as their ideas about who they are, collectively.

Their story: “We are from peasants and fishermen. We believe that it is virtuous to ask for nothing and that nothing is deserved. Everything must be earned by dedicated hard work, belief in God, cooperation with authority, and acceptance of the hard realities of life. If we live right, the reward will come, if not here, then after death.”

This is definitely a ‘system approved’ mindset, and it even sounds kind of high-minded, doesn’t it?

That’s the cultural womb in which I developed. When I left my small town of Boiling Springs, Pa, I had nothing to go on but my flawed goodness, self-critical inner voice, and insecurity. It’s such a relief to look back on situations and choices, realizing that ‘inferiority’ was the set-up. This is deep conditioning, and as I look at it now, it explains a lot about how and why (I) we suffer.

There are many avenues to inferior ego, and class is just one. It’s amazing when you think about it… the incoming messages telling us how, for this reason, or that reason, we are flawed in comparison to others. Of course, if the messages are trans-generational they not only hit home, they’re firmly established as normal and natural. We develop thought patterns and emotions around them, and ways of coping.

Ego is concerned with ‘something for me’, so the ways of coping would grant the ego ‘something’. What is there to gain from doubting oneself? Avoidance of confrontation – that’s a biggie. Then we have hidden pride in one’s humbleness and sacrifice. Fitting the description of what God wants is another. There’s also the opportunity to endlessly think about ourselves because there is so much to fix.

If you’re into New Age, you may decide that by sufficiently putting yourself down it means you’ve gotten rid of the ego. At this point, the flipside can show up and you become ‘superior’ at manifesting the soul. Badness is gone, goodness here, I am nothing… let me become a teacher. Hopefully, if that happens, the dishonesty in it will be felt, and you’ll look for the exit, pronto.

Obviously, ego is not going to get rid of the ego… which is a fruitless effort in itself. We can’t rid ourselves of the ego, nor should we try. We can see its doings, notice what it’s saying, feel it when it fires up the emotions, sit it back down, and make sure our decisions come from the heart. Ego has a place, just not as the driver. It’s a great relief, that day when you notice the ego’s not significant enough to get in the way anymore. The heart is being called in to make decisions.

It took a long time for me to see how I had embraced inferiority and that I was conditioned to give my power away. Thankfully, painful experiences throughout my life sent me in the direction of self-knowledge and expansion of consciousness. Into my world came great books, teachers, healers and wise friends, and the thought… I deserve to be ‘not this miserable’. That was the beginning.

By the way, we can tell the difference between when the ego says ‘I deserve’ and when the heart says ‘I deserve’. I think realizing this is key. Relating it to myself, fear that I’d be deemed a bad person, or that my choices would be self-serving and harmful to others, kept me in insecurity for quite a while. I wonder how many of us have experienced this. I suspect quite a few.

We don’t need to apologize for having an ego, and for its identity being formed by the conditioning we experienced. That’s part of life on earth. We live and grow, and uncover our connection to Source experience by experience. By the time we begin to make heart-based decisions, the conditioning will have much less effect, and the ego will be diminished and diminishing. It’s a beautiful thing when we can see the way to our true selves… that full, all-inclusive, ‘divinity within’ human being.

I wouldn’t bring this up and share it if it hadn’t been vital to my own expansion of consciousness and possibly helpful to you: loving ourselves is step one on the heart-centered path. Because of my terrible early childhood abuse, “I deserve to be loved,” was an incredibly difficult statement for me to contemplate, and it took the following words to open the door: “And so I will begin by giving myself the love I deserve.” It's taken almost a whole lifetime for me to come to this conclusion.

Give yourself the love you deserve, give yourself the respect you deserve, give yourself the health, the appreciation, the kindness, the honor, the liberation from conditioning that you deserve. You are not ‘less than’ or unworthy. If there is a voice in your head that argues about your worthiness, know that it is the ego, and this opinion you can safely let go.

Heart-based decisions will never do harm. The heart is not the seat of sentimentality… it is the seat of courage and devotion to that which is sacred in us and in life. The intention of the heart is aligned with the highest good, which is love, and the highest good for ourselves translates into the highest good for all, including those close to us. This is your power: take it back.

In the heart, we live for ourselves, not against. In so doing we can’t help but live for the world, intending and creating the world of beauty that we deserve.

The Evolution of Perception

     In any attempt to save the world we are in one sense an immense help in changing the world, and in another sense, paradoxically, we are a hindrance and destructive burden upon the world. The world which most people seek is invariably based upon their own sense of pleasure with the exclusion of pain. The socially accepted freedom that we value and associate with liberation, the one that drives most us to change the world, is a separatist effort to impose our own individual agenda upon others and the world. German psychologist Erich Fromm would suggest that this is “freedom from” or “freedom to”, but not real freedom because it is based on the differing points of view that each and every one of us believes to be physical and psychological comfortability.

     This social and cultural motif that humanity perpetuates is only one dimensional for the sheer fact that we have excluded the reality of pain from our existence. We are suffering from an illness within the psychological and spiritual sphere as a result. An individual will do anything no matter how absurd to avoid their latent psychological and spiritual pain. We dissect and edit out of our life what is not in accord with our hypnotic conditioning, as we continue to try and bypass the inevitables in our life. Pain is experienced when we begin to break our psychological limitations. The very nature of our perception is contaminated as a result of spiritually bypassing our psychological pain, to the point that the root of our awareness is continually veiled from the excessive stimulation of pleasure within the physical and mental planes of consciousness.

     The arcane wisdom of the sages expounds to humanity that consciousness is composed of three planes of growth which is an evolutionary process our perception undergoes through sincere self-work. The wisdom traditions, the esoteric mystery schools of antiquity, the perennial philosophers both ancient and contemporary, and the metaphysicians all refer to these three planes as the physical, mental and spiritual. Majority of humanity only perceive the temporal plane of the physical world, and are somehow under the delusion that this sphere is a permanent realm without ever undergoing vibratory and rhythmic transformations of change from the spiritual sphere. In John Holman’s The Return of the Perennial Philosophy he writes about this evolutionary process of perception through the three planes in relation to Christian Theosophy,

     There are actually three births. The first is the natural or ‘outward’ birth, the second is the birth of the soul in the human consciousness, and the third is the birth of the spirit or the highest divinity in the soul. In Christian Theosophy man – every man – is body, soul, and spirit, and the three births relate to each of these. At the end of the road, man sees through his highest spiritual eye. This ‘eye in the heart’ (a phrase also popular with Frithjof Schuon) was/is the eye ‘with which God sees himself through us’, says Versluis. The Fall of Man (or Adam) is a moving away from this higher (Aevertinal) consciousness to a lower (Character or earthly man) consciousness, so that instead of seeing transcendent reality, we see only the temporophysical world.

     The sincere spiritual seeker and esoteric student travel through these three planes of growth, where one’s perception begins to evolve from the physical and mental planes of material and intellectual orientated consciousness, onto the higher plane of spiritual consciousness. If one is sincere in their own introspected self-work, our perception of reality will embark upon a journey from matter to spirit where consciousness is perceived in all forms of life. British author and philosopher Philip Sherrard explains this journey from matter to spirit,

     I see the universe as a hierarchy of levels descending from the formless spiritual level down to the most dense material form.

     In Sanskrit the liberation of perception is known as moksha, and in The Science and Practice of Humility this is known as the “evolution of perception” where I thoroughly explore the philosophical, psychological, metaphysical, and spiritual knowledge behind this evolved perception and its relation to the three planes of consciousness.

     The spiritual plane of consciousness is a level of perception so reflective and transparent that one who dwells in this enlightened state can perceive eternity in the manifest and understand that matter and spirit could not be separate. The Taoist sage Chuang Tzu said,

     When there is no more separation between “this” and “that,” it is called the still-point of the Tao. At the still-point in the center of the circle one can see the infinite in all things.

     Residing in that unpolluted state of consciousness, the spiritual plane, Chuang Tzu could perceive the infinite irreducible essence of the universe, known in Chinese as Tao and Sanskrit as Brahman, in all forms of nature. This is a way of perception so subtle that one can perceive the formless reality within the world of form. This level of perception that Chuang Tzu attained cleared his mind and vision of what he once thought was a concrete reality built on separation and chaos. In this purification of one’s mind and awareness, an evolution of perception takes place naturally that leads one to the ultimate “sense of unity” revealed within. This evolved perception and sense of unity should not be misconstrued with the informational awareness one attains from alternative research of conspiracy theories or new-age misconceptions of oneness. The awareness and oneness that a sage imbibes is in the authentic wisdom of a sense of unity within consciousness that an individual has latent within and can experience as it is our original nature. The result of this mystical experience is a pure state of awareness not attracted or caught in the apparent drama of life.

     As a result of being lost in our daily dramas and general semantics of life, the most misunderstood and peculiar state of consciousness in this world remains that of a sage. In general, people often think a sage’s life is useless and de-humanist because a sage is not at all concerned with the issues of the world in the same way that most people are. The thinking in the western developed world, which is the primary way of thinking all over the world, is that the moral and noble individual is built upon the agendas we uphold according to our indoctrinated belief systems. This indoctrination leads to a righteousness and benevolence that, in the eyes of the general public, is thought to be virtuous and beneficial to humanity. To act in this manner is what most people believe “being human” is about. The more we are actively engaged in life, the better we are for life is the social and cultural meme.

     Yet, as a sage would point out, this perspective is fundamentally flawed because the way in which we are trying to change the world is based on our own personal conditioning that in the end is a separatist view of life. How can we ever heal our differences as a species through our separatist notions and agendas?

     In realizing this predicament, a sage seeks to uproot all of their own personal agendas in the hope to reach a place within of complete equanimity. When we are not distracted by our conditional responses to the external world, our attention begins to look inward bringing the agendas that we believe to be intrinsic to our nature to the light of consciousness. The realization one has in this process is that it is the completely “agenda-less Being” who is free in this life. And in this complete freedom they are the only one who can deal with any issue, no matter how large or small, because their perception is not caught in the detail of worldly affairs. This elevated perception is what distinguishes an authentic sage from the common state of perception in the world.

In my new book The Science and Practice of Humility, this elevated state of perception is a central theme because it links evolution to the enlightenment of the individual when explored deeply. To equate our perception to evolution is foreign knowledge to those who are distracted by the gravitational pull of the external world. But for those who are in sincere introspection this is an experience of reality that is reflective and transparent.

     The origins of the knowledge of evolution are in the way we perceive the world. In Hermeticism, Hinduism, and other occult traditions, they all explain this through the relationship between the expansion and contraction of consciousness, as its function corresponds to the in and out action of breathing but in relation to the sense of perception. Hinduism refers to this as the “breath of Brahma.” This is in direct correlation with the Hermetic doctrine that explains this using the terms “involution” and “evolution.” Meaning, involution is the contracted state of perception that is “involved” in the detail of life and worldly affairs, and diametrically opposed to this is evolution which is the expanded state of perception that is a way out of the gravitational pull and distraction of involution. For example, when we observe an ant colony, we discover from our elevated level of perception a civilization and system of ants that are harmonious and intrinsic to Earth. But a paradox exists here, because even though from our level we perceive harmony, from the ant’s perspective life is chaotic. In Chip Hartranft’s commentary of The Yoga-Sutras of Patanjali he articulates this evolution of perception beautifully,

     As the senses spontaneously cease to react to external stimuli, a phenomenon Patanjali callspratyahara, consciousness begins to grow calmer and more refined in its perceptions, and capable of noticing the ordinarily invisible movements of consciousness itself. The experience is something like viewing a realistic image in a painting at the far end of a gallery. As one comes closer, the brushstrokes and the texture of the canvas become visible – eventually to the point where the image has completely deconstructed and can no longer be seen unless one elects to step back.

     When we look into the nature of all life on this planet and the universe this understanding of harmony in correspondence to chaos can be applied to anything, even the human race.

     When we observe humanity, we discover that on one level of existence there is war and discord, and yet from a higher level of perception life is actually healthy and harmonious. An example of this is a city. For those who live in the city, life is busy and fast paced, and one’s mind is caught in the detail of social and cultural life, and as a result they impose their Will upon others by perpetuating their own personal agendas. Though this may be life on the level within a city, if we are to hover above a city we discover that from a different level of magnification a city is in perfect harmony and moving in a rhythm that replicates a biological organism. It really depends on how you look at it.

     We discover this rhythm in all levels of life, from the subatomic vibrations of electrons, to the movement and orbits of galaxies in the vast eternal expanse of space. In every facet of life there is an order to the apparent chaos, the only problem is most of us are not witness to the order that gives chaos its latent harmony. Our agendas based on our conditioning bind us to worldly affairs in the external world, rather than sincere introspection within. Human perception is primarily focused on the physical and mental planes of consciousness, which are those levels of perception we use to focus on the detail of reality. But both of these planes are only an extension from the spiritual sphere. When we focus a microscope on the cellular world we perceive chaos with seemingly no pattern, but when we retract our attention we discover a human organism in a complete harmonious order and pattern. The physical and mental plane equate to the chaotic perception of the cellular world, while the higher perception of those cells making up a part of a harmonious human body is the elevated perception of the spiritual plane of consciousness.

     We all know this to be true because when we are lost in the detail of life and the stories within our mind, we lose sight of our center and the perception of reality as it “is,” not as “we” think it should be. Peace in this world, both individually and collectively, will never be a reality if we continually impose our Will over others, no matter how subtle or gross our agenda is. If our conditioning is not exposed, we cannot complain about how the world is or our plight in life.

     The answer to this riddle is in perceiving reality as it “is” and not in how we want it to be according to what we perceive as a pleasurable experience. The answer is not in attempting to change the world to suit yourself, but instead, it is in liberating your mind from the hypnosis of the detail that magnetically attracts and draws your perception out of the center of the spiritual plane. A sage dwells on this plane, as they have refined their awareness into the oceanic consciousness of the spiritual plane, where their perception is not attracted to the drama of conditioned beliefs. Thus they perceive the pattern of reality that unites us all. This perception not only evolves the individual, but also the collective, because the individual is the seed of the collective. If our perception is not caught in the detail, how could any conflict or violence eventuate? Both conflict and violence would be impossible because all modes of division, whether that is religious, nationalistic, race, sex, and other subtle forms of separation, have dissolved into a mind of no deliberation through an evolved perception. This proves the temporal nature of such belief systems.

     The virtues of compassion and forgiveness arise naturally in one whose perception has evolved, as they have ceased taking any part in life’s so called “game” that cannot and will not ever be won. If we are to seriously contemplate upon this, how could we ever seek to change the world without ever understanding where the world comes from?

     The world comes from the individual; everything the world “is” comes from the mind of the individual. To change the way of the collective world is an abstraction, as the world is a multitude of individuals. So if we are seeking to change the world, all you need to do is be sincere in changing yourself and then the world has changed. This real change, though, cannot be understood clearly if we are ignoring any aspect of ourselves, either physically, mentally or spiritually. We need to be sincere in liberation through self-work, because if we are just trying to dwell on the spiritual plane without working on the physical and mental planes, then this is a form of ignorance, which is discussed at length within The Science and Practice of Humility.

     Misconceptions are generated by the status quo in how a sage’s consciousness is perceived. The empty flowery interpretations of new-age teachers, who invariably only push positivity (masculine/yang/active/heaven) without acknowledging the negative (feminine/yin/receptive/earth) aspect of the psyche, and the herd-like imitation of followers, have not helped the matter.

     As a result of such deep-seeded monarchical perspectives of the universe, either consciously or unconsciously, most people view a sage’s way of perceiving as blank or devoid of emotion that is above all life. This comes from a lack of understanding and depth which is usually from the average individual who knows nothing about sincere self-work or by one whose spirituality has become narrow and rigid. A sage’s evolution of perception, on the other hand, is analogous to the space of the universe, meaning it is not simply blank, empty nothingness. But instead, space contains the whole universe which is that sense of unity most have never come in contact with.

     The sage’s softened glare, refined consciousness and evolved perception, allows them to be receptive to life in authentic humility, rather than meeting the world head on with resistance and force. This receptivity, which humanity has forgotten, is an openness so radical that change begins to take place without the intention to do so. Receptivity is the feminine principle of nature that we have all suppressed because we are under the hypnosis from our intellectual world that this is weakness to show such openness to life. But if we can see clearly in this moment, what has projecting our conditioning upon the world achieved other than the perpetual destruction and suffering of the planet and human race? To assume that being receptive is weak is to ignore the obvious power of humility.

     When we observe the most receptive aspect of nature, water, we discover that though it may be perceived as weak, it is in fact the most powerful aspect of nature because of its receptive quality. Water is the lowest lying force of nature replicating the human quality of humility, and yet water’s humble nature has the power within it to end civilization as we know it. This analogy does not mean that humility is a tyrannical power used to take over the world through control; on the contrary, this power that one acquires in revealing the “science of humility” is a state of receptivity that transforms the world from the foundation of life up onto the superficial layer of form. Bringing authentic humility into our consciousness depends on how we perceive the world both within and without, and is actually a bridge between both worlds. Our level of magnification holds the key to individual liberation in this life, as to see reality as it actually “is,” frees us from the limitations within our mind so we can finally perceive the one underlying reality moving through the many in its infinite uniqueness. Perceiving reality from the spiritual plane allows for the science of humility to emanate its light into the world.

     The Science and Practice of Humility is a book that explores the spiritual, scientific, esoteric, philosophical, psychological, and metaphysical principles and wisdom of the universe. But first and foremost, it emphasizes that if we want authentic freedom then we need to be sincere in all facets of our life and truly understand that we do belong to this world. Real freedom, both individually and collectively, depends on how you see the world and how willing you are to experience that essence within you that is of the eternal realm (known as the connection between Atman and Brahman in Sanskrit) which cannot be given a name as it is the nameless within you. Evolution rests upon that nameless experience of enlightenment that can only become a reality through the perception you attain from sincere introspection and self-work.

4 Celebrated Freedoms that Now Require Permission or Privilege to Enjoy

Independence, liberty, freedom. Ideas worth celebrating, for sure, only intangible constructs of the human mind, therefore, their meanings can change along with the times. And since people are extremely adaptable creatures, we rapidly normalize to ever-evolving societal and cultural conditions and values.What people consider being ‘freedom’ today, is nothing similar to what it was even a couple of generations ago.

Here are 4 celebrated, historic liberties that people have long enjoyed, yet are undergoing a dramatic metamorphosis in an evolving world.
1. ) The Freedom to Travel

The idea that human beings should be free to roam the earth without permission or threat is now dated. Prior to the 1930’s you needn’t a driver’s license to operate a motor vehicle or carriage in America. Traveling without a passport used to be commonplace as well.

Now, even recreational drivers are required to be commercially licensed, and in addition to a complex system of fees, fines, high-speed chases, and beat-downs, we are now watching the normalization of domestic checkpoints manned by armed and dangerous government employee.


“Sobriety checkpoints — also known as DUI checkpoints — are the most common roadblocks you might encounter. They function as a general purpose investigatory tactic where police can get a close look at passing motorists by detaining them briefly. A roadblock stop is quick, but it gives police a chance to check tags and licenses, while also giving officers a quick whiff of the driver’s breath and a chance to peer into the vehicle for a moment.” [Source]
2.) The Right to be Self-Sustaining

Living off the grid is the ultimate example of personal responsibility, but as the government needs dependents in order to be relevant, the type of rugged, ingenious mind that once made America remarkable is being stamped out in a fog of rules, regulations, permits, codes and trade agreements. For those interested in cultivating true independence by homesteading or setting up a little off grid outpost somewhere, it is increasingly difficult and expensive to comply with the state.
“Look, if I want to build a yurt of rabbit skins and go to the bathroom in a compost pile, why is it any of the government’s business? Bureaucrats bend over backward to accredit, tax credit, and offer money to people wanting to build pig city-factories or bigger airports. But let a guy go to his woods, cut down some trees, and build himself a home, and a plethora of regulatory tyrants descend on the project to complicate, obfuscate, irritate, frustrate, and virtually terminate. I think it’s time to eradicate some of these laws and the piranhas who administer them.” – Joel Salatin

In some areas, people’s veggie gardens are being ripped up by over-zealous code enforcers, senior citizens are being fined thousands of dollars for not cutting their grass on time, individual rainwater collection is being prosecuted, and police are being called in to enforce mandatory connection to public utilities.
3.) Freedom of Speech

Supposedly one of the greatest rights bestowed upon Americans by the constitution, increasingly, the right to speak your mind is under duress, by the government, corporate policy makers, and a changing social climate. Sure, since the ’80’s we’ve been trained to accept Free Speech Zones, where protestors could be shuffled out of sight and out of mind. Now, though, we’re entering an era of extreme political correctness and unabashed irrationality. People are increasingly unwilling to listen to what others have to say, and intolerance is being normalized under a cloak of phony diversity.

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?” – Orwell’s 1984

The way we communicate is rapidly changing, and corporations now have incredible power to shape our thoughts, as sites like Facebook have demonstrated. Our language can be molded and transformed by company policy, as forum rules and formats can change in accordance with investor motives. We no longer own our words or our conversations.

Here’s an example of the kind of behavior that is now acceptable when some are in the presence of ideas they are unwilling to tolerate:

https://youtu.be/BY1H1rZL53I

4.) The Right to Choose Your Own Medicine

Human beings have always had a symbiotic relationship with food and with plants, and medicine was always something taken directly from nature and combined with human intuition, wisdom and the intention to heal. The disruption of the balance between humans and nature, as initiated by consumer culture and corporate medicine, has taken a fundamental human right and is turning it into a privilege.
READ: Americans Argue Over Puppets While Global Masters Meet in Secrecy

The corporate overthrow of the concept of medicine, mass fear-hyping, and the war on drugs are devastating to personal sovereignty. Mandatory vaccines, public water fluoridation, and the prohibition of plant medicines such as cannabis, ayahuasca, and iboga, add up to a severely restricted perception of health and wellness, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

If you alone do not own your body, then who owns your body?

War on consciousness. They completely destroy the matrix of cultural programming, clearing space within the psyche for something new and positive to emerge.” – Dylan Charles
Final Thoughts

Due to the inherent violence required to maintain the social-political order we have now, along with mass indoctrination of the public with extreme statist and corporatist ideologies, it is practically impossible for most people to imagine a world governed by voluntaryism, although it’s well worth consideration for those enjoy the celebration of human liberty.

“If, before undertaking some action, you must obtain the permission of society—you are not free, whether such permission is granted to you or not. Only a slave acts on permission. A permission is not a right.” [Source]