Spiritual Growth Books: EXTRACT 

What’s In Our Aura?

EVERYTHING we do, think, say and feel emerges into our awareness compliments of Soul.

We do not have a self, not as such, but we do have Soul – all of us do and each soul is pure energy.

No one – not even the worst of the international community’s current ‘enemies’ – has a dark soul. There is no such thing as a ‘dark’ soul.

Karma and an Ego-Persona are the other two of our ‘drivers’.

Karma and Ego are naturally neutral. They are as neutral as, in itself, fire is neutral – it can warm us, cook our food, stop a greater fire in its tracks, just as it has the potential to create havoc and devastation.

The wind and the rain are neutral, too. So is uranium. So are cars.

They each serve a genuine purpose. Electricity is neutral, too. Neither good nor bad, and we can’t live anymore without it. It just IS. As for all natural and man-made resources, our safety depends on what use we make of these resources and how carefully we handle them.

Similarly, it is the manner in which we interact with Karma and Ego that, too often, renders us energetically volatile and often hostile.

That’s mostly because we understand even less about Karma and Ego than we do about electricity, wind and fire. And imagine the chaos in our lives – in the world – if we all mishandled fire and electricity on a daily basis!

Soul uses Mind to push us in the right direction. Here is how she does it: our Karma is embedded in our energy field a.k.a. our aura.

Our Aim – Mind’s Aim – Should Be Obvious By Now

Quick question that’s just popped into my mind: just as it is through the evolution of the species that we have supposedly ‘lost’ the tail we have been told our early ancestors had inherited from the salamander, because we no longer needed it, why have we not yet lost our aura, our energy field, seeing as we have done absolutely nothing with it over the past couple of billion years?

Why hasn’t it just faded away? Karma and Ego are partly inherited from our Karmic ancestors and partly reshaped by us on a moment-to-moment basis.

Both Karma and Ego are the result of how Mind has responded to the long string of moments they have presented us since our birth.

Quick facts about Ego-persona:
Ego is not an entity. It doesn’t come in any size.

The argument based on the theory that someone has a small ego while someone else is said to have an XXXL ego does not belong in this discussion – not any more than the notion of ‘dark’ souls do.

Ego is not something that can be excised from our brain like a gland or a piece of the neocortex.

Ego is not something we can sit on a chair and reason with it as we would with a fractious three-year-old child.

Although it, too, is pure energy, Ego, like the face of the moon, generates no light of its own. Just as Moon reflects Sun’s light, Ego reflects Soul’s energy in our energy field/aura.

Here is a rough illustration of how all the components interact together: Let’s compare Soul, pure energy, to the most amazing program money can buy and let’s say that Soul ‘runs’ through an installation named Ego. Or we could say that Ego is the processor while Mind is the decoder.

Generally speaking, most of us, neither Awake nor Aware nor present in the moment, are far from evolved and we could say that Soul’s energy, bright and pure, comes to Mind reflected by Ego.

However, like an old pitted mirror left in the corner of the attic, Ego’s surface is pitted and tainted. No matter how bright the light of Soul and the neutral energy of Ego, reflection can only be fuzzy. We could also humbly agree that Ego is like the old computer I gave away last year.

Why did I give away that lovely laptop that was only 2 years old? Because it was not powerful enough to run’ the new programs I had begun using. So, in summary, splendid Soul is unable to do its thing because Ego’s surface is either dusty and stained … or lagging.

Our aim, Mind’s aim, should be obvious by now. If we want to feel the full energy of Soul, we need to restore the reflective surface of Ego, Soul’s mirror or upgrade Ego, Soul’s processor.

Mechanics of An Adult Tantrum

Without a clear picture of the entire, huge, millennia-long backdrop of our daily moments, it is very hard to make sense of what makes us tick here & now – and how to attempt overriding whatever that is.

Without a clear understanding of how karma, ego and Soul inter-relate, it is almost impossible to understand the mechanics of our human decision-making processes.

So, if you’ve arrived at this post by accident and are puzzled, I’d suggest you go back to the source, a couple of pages back 😉

Soul is the Overseer. She has infinite power.

Ironically, though Soul is free of any automation, she is imprisoned within our chest and therefore can do no more than project her messages via the ego-persona which acts as a mirror reflecting to the mind/brain her images or messages in the form of thoughts and impressions.

Soul is of the lightest form of energy and she is always pure and inseparable from the Cosmos/from the Divine.

Ego has limited powers because she can only see the world through our senses and thus, unlike Soul who has infinite energy from which to sustain herself, because of her inherent limitation Ego has to burn up energy to remain buzzing.

Ego is a centripetal force that attracts egoistical cravings to itself – like a magnet attracts all that is metal regardless of its shape and size – while Soul is a centrifugal force which spins Heart energy outwards from her core.

Back to the moment of the inner tantrum I have already referred to in preceding articles:

What happens when I’m faced with a situation I find quite annoying?

Soul nudges me. She appeals to my better nature.

Ego reflects the beam.

Mind decodes it and I hear the little voice that is prompting me to be grown up about my darling’s funhouse plan and to deal with it with an open heart.

Mind leaves me with 2 choices:

Option #1: I throw my shoulders back, breathe with intent and agree that my annoyance reflects an energetic block inside of me, in my energy field.

The block undoubtedly comes from Heart Chakra. Soul understands that I, CC – the body – needs to rise to the occasion and can rise to the occasion – hence this test. My little task, here, now, in the moment under my feet is to ACTIVELY accept What Is.

What-Is, is my darling’s wish for a get-together to reconnect with people we have not seen in a long time. I, CC – body – understand that ANY gathering is a huge opportunity to give from the heart.

It is about a lot more than merely cooking up something – or having it catered – and serving it with drinks. I, CC – body – understand that the idea of that particular get-together has been sent to my darling’s mind by my Soul as a way to test my higher reflexes a.k.a. reining in my automated responses.

Mind-over-matter [under duress] has no place in this discussion UNLESS it comes preceded by HEART i.e. let’s do whatever needs doing, but let’s always do it heart-over-mind-over-matter.

Should I, CC – the body – shift into Higher gear to respond to the whisper of Soul as reflected by Ego and decoded by Mind, the get-together, once I ACTIVELY accept it, plan AND deliver from Heart, alongside my darling, will score me some nice soulful kudos for I will have acted for the greater good of all AND the greater good of self.

If I actively choose option #1, by the time my darling comes home from work, I will be able to discuss with her the logistics of the get-together with an open mind.

By actively challenging my comfort zones for the greater good of all and of self, I will be amending Karma inside Ego and, yes, as a bonus, I will have a good time with our guests AND my darling will think I rock – which is not anything to sneeze at. As an aside – I will add that, as is often the case, the moment we ACTIVELY accept Soul’s dare, the dare disappears. It is vaporised.

Option #2: I can keep tallying all the annoying traits of these friends we haven’t seen in months, which would confirm why our acquaintanceship has found itself interrupted.

I can grumble about how untimely that get-together would be and also, OMG! I can even conjure visual images of the sink overflowing with dirty dishes, glasses and pans stacked everywhere, as well as the unavoidable hours of clean up waiting for us the next morning.

Energy already bristling, at the first opportunity, I, through Mind, will broach the topic of this gathering.

An argument with my darling is sure to follow and then there will be the fallout of the argument to deal with. Soul understands that by creating such an obstruction, I, CC – the body – am feeding my base reflexes – the ones that have been purpose-built to indulge Me, My, Mine and I – above all else.

It is only very recently that I have understood the meaning of the Biblical quote that states, “In the day when God created man. He made him in the likeness of God.”

This energy field is the biblical image of God – our higher self tucked inside our ego-persona.

As I am not religious, I choose to substitute any reference to a non-creator ‘God’ for Soul and still respect the integrity of the message, and what it says is that we, bodies, have within us all that we need to evolve through our Ego to become likeness of Soul – pure energy – in the fullness of time – at the end of many other lifetimes.

Personally, I find this a very interesting concept.

What’s a good Person To Do?

Eleanor Rigby – song by The Beatles – 1966

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near
Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there’s nobody there
What does he care?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

At the time of writing, one of the currently trending approaches to living better and longer is based on Dan Buettner’s findings on Blue Zones, a handful of areas in the world where, on average, people live well – and well beyond a hundred years of age.

“The calculus of aging offers us two options,” says Buettner. “We can live a shorter life with more years of disability, or we can live the longest possible life with the fewest bad years. As my centenarian friends showed me, the choice is largely up to us.”

Buettner’s list of 9 ‘commandments’ goes as follows:

1. Keep moving
Find ways to move naturally, such as walking and gardening, using fewer labor-saving devices.

2. Find purpose
Pursue it with passion.

3. Slow down
Work less, rest, and take vacations.

4. Stop eating
… when you’re 80 percent full.

5. Dine on plants
Eat more veggies and less meat and processed foods.

6. Drink red wine
Do it consistently but in moderation.

7. Join a group
Create a healthy social network.

8. Feed your soul
Engage in spiritual activities.

9. Love your tribe
Make family a high priority.

In reality, though the main Blue Zones areas are located in remote areas where life is still mainly ‘done’ in age-old ways, centenarians still dot all corners of the globe, even our polluted, crowded capital cities.

A couple of years ago, I entitled a chapter in Stepping Stones #1, What is it that IS Keeping Us Here – or not?

The gist of it was to explain that, though some lifestyle factors do certainly contribute to our death, they are not the main triggers for either life or death – but our spiritual coherence and our karma [such as it has evolved] … are.

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The covers for the 3 volumes of The Steppings Stones series have been kindly donated by Jayne Doah.