How Messed Up Are We and What is it Going to Take To Fix Us? Your Answer?

Over the last 40 years there has been a shift in self-help strategies from pop-psychology to pop-spirituality, but not much seems to actually be getting better. In fact, I personally know of no fundamental advancement in quality of life by any measure during the course of my lifetime. Even in spite of a relatively dramatic shift over the last 20 years in the availability of holistically-based approaches in medicine and astronomical amounts of money being thrown at our problems, we lag behind many much poorer countries in critical measures of the effectiveness of health care such as infant mortality. How bad can our problems really be and why haven't we managed to at least find a basic idea of where we are going wrong?  

Well, I have my own ideas, but I'd like to hear yours. Let's put it out on the table and see what we have stored in our collective consciousness. Answer these four questions in simple language:

1. What is the fundamental problem?
2. What is the fundamental answer?
3. How do we communicate, teach and apply the answer?
4. What are the obstacles to communicating, teaching and applying the answer?

I'm looking forward to your input and allowing you to see what everyone else has to say!

Peace,

Anton Elohan

In All Things Spiritual, First Things First...

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All things in your life start with your experience of them. This means that the clearer you are, the more intimate every experience will be, the more potential you can access and bring to the surface, the less you will rely on external valuations of who you are and the more fulfilled you will be.

So the first thing we work on in spiritual development is just becoming clear, becoming the natural self. Everything else flows from that and through that.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

The Curious Notion of Purpose and Its Curiouser Source...

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The notion of purpose is really just a slightly abstracted version of connected (which, in turn, is a slightly abstracted version of integrated, which in turn...) In other words, the failure to sense what we are part of by abstracting reality and living inside that abstraction creates an experiential disconnection that hurts.


And that hurt translates to us as a raw need, just like the need for oxygen when we hold our breath. But since we don't usually sense any more depth to that feeling than just something that is missing, it comes out in our experience as not belonging, of not fitting in in a way that seems to include a loss of direction. Run through our cultural filters, that translates into needing a purpose.

What it all means is that we are perceptually out of place and feel it as viscerally as a fish out of water. We just don't know we are out of our place because we don't perceive reality from an experiential perspective. But, thank goodness, this is a learned behavior. And what is learned can be unlearned...

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Guidance by True "Wisdom" Must be Internal...

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The clearest and most direct wisdom is that which comes from listening to the internal source. We often seek outside "wisdom" for guidance in the early stages of our development, and there can certainly be advantage there if indeed those we seek our guidance from are themselves connected to wisdom found within; but it is when we do not make the transition from what starts as abstract knowledge to actually being guided by our internal source under our own power that we run into problems.

If the second-hand wisdom of our teachers is of the best possible quality it will include a transition by which we release ourselves from their instruction in every way.  No other process can truly orient us fully to the wisdom within.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

The Secret to Spiritual Development and Awakening (I Kid You Not) Is...

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Entirely in perception.

This is why it is possible for someone to awaken as a young child or without training. It is equally possible for someone to be stuck for years and have a sudden and profound breakthrough.  Just as easily, it is possible for a beginning student to move to an advanced level in a moment.

If you never come back to this site or learn another stitch about spiritual development from me, take this with you for the rest of your life:  It is not about trying harder, being better, loving yourself more or compassion. It is in the subtlest of shifts you could possibly imagine--in the recognition of things for what they are instead of what you think they are.  That's it.  That's all it is.

So, come on back whenever you want and I'll tell you the rest of the story...

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Missing the Soul of the Moment...

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Where does the time go?  Well, among other places (like into the past), time disappears into a void of perspective when we are not in it, when we are doing something else.

Sure, seems obvious, right?

The difference between what you are probably thinking and what I mean is that most of us have developed a habit of not being in the present even when we would swear we are.  There's a kind of technical reason for this that isn't worth going into right now, but in general we are usually busy thinking about the moment and the things in the moment and the time it takes us to do that steals the soul away from the core of the moment, the part in which we actually connect to what's around us.

But, if we don't know we are doing this and no one else does either, how are we to tell?  We can tell by the fact that we don't feel fully complete.  It may be a subtle feeling, but it's there in the same way missing a little bit of sleep can make us feel just slightly out of touch.

This is more important than you might realize.  Every moment in which you are not fully present is a moment in which you fail to connect with the pith of life.  What is in that pith?

Stop back by some other time and find out...

Peace,

Anton Elohan

LOA? When Abundance and Positivity Fail Because They Just Do...

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Some things are hard to keep afloat--they simply take too much energy.  It's nice when positivity breeds positivity; it's nice when believing things are good and good things will come our way does give us an edge in perspective.

But sometimes things just don't work and it has nothing to do with fate or some unconscious flaw in our thinking that screws us up or "attracts" negative vibes we're projecting out into the universe.  Sometimes $#it happens...

If we have pinned our futures, our self expectations and our self assessments on these notions of a kind of magic that fails only if we fail to apply it correctly or because we just haven't pushed the right magic button or taken the right magic class yet... we're going to live an awfully rocky life.

The natural world is an interesting place and your life has far more involved in it than just you, your choices, your outlook and control. Yes, absolutely, there is a whole bunch we can handle better and life can be completely different if we do, but sometimes what happens has nothing to do with us and we just have to watch it roll by. Perhaps we'll say "ouch!" or even smile and wave at it as it crashes on down the street.

And we move on.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Time to be Present...

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The only difference between meditating to be present and just being present is the time we spend meditating.  There is nothing wrong with meditating until it becomes its own distraction.  The point to being present, to being in the moment, is to live.  We can sit, stand, walk or talk; we can be quiet or rambunctious; just be here and not there.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Help! My Metaphors Don't Play Well with Others!...

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The single biggest problem in spiritual development is the overabundance of different metaphor systems via different religious and spiritual traditions, different psychological models, different healing processes, different cosmologies, etc.  And many, many modern teachers compound the problem by shoving them all together as if they actually all mean the same thing.  Sorry to break it to you, but they don't.

I'm not saying any one of them is wrong, per se, but that many of them simply don't structurally work with others.  But they are often shoved at us in a fuzzy, feel-good fashion as if we just don't quite get it, but maybe will someday; maybe if we just smile enough and squint our mind's eye they will all blend together in a warm bath of happiness!

When you boil down almost any particular path to what is available to any reasonably accessible depth you find that almost everything points to the source of spiritual life and development being inside the individual.  Beyond that they start to diverge for a variety of reasons, but let's stop there!  If we know the answer has been found inside time and time and time again, why not just find a way to clarify and simplify the understanding of how to look inward, and then move forward from there without all those confusing and contradictory metaphors?

To be continued...

Peace,

Anton Elohan

The Gift of Meaning...

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A very interesting feature of meaning is that you can't give it, tell it to other people or force it on them.  They can only experience it by being connected, by the actual act of being part of everything, by removing the veils around themselves and participating.

So, the gift of meaning is only received when it is opened, and the initial opening is done by the false self becoming the natural self. And meaning then becomes a way of life instead of something being reached for.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Yesterday's Metaphors...

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are like moldy spaghetti...

Why are we stuck on accessing our source through the antiquated and arcane metaphor systems of yesterday?  Just like anything else that stands between us and the natural self, metaphors--and old metaphors in particular--are bridges at best, and walls otherwise.

Let go of the past in all senses and embrace the now.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Spiritual Development with Intuisdom Book and Course Giveaway!...

Celebrate spiritual development naturally with Intuisdom! WIN an e-book, a signed copy of my book or a free spiritual development course by registering for our mailing list! The 1st, 25th, 50th, 150th and 250th people registering will receive an e-book version of my book and the 100th, 200th and 300th people will receive a signed copy of Finding Fulfillment with Intuisdom. And if we get to 500 and 1000, those people will receive the Spiritual Development Breakthrough Fundamentals Online Course when it is available at the end of this month. Click on the link below to see the new site, register for the drawing, listen to an audio version of the first chapter of my book and receive my Intuisdom Guide to Meditation by e-mail. ONLY ONE REGISTRATION per person, please. 

www.intuisdom.com

 

Peace, 

Anton Elohan.

The Subtle Light of Awakening...

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Learning to become the natural self is at first quite a bit like trying to navigate in a house in which you can't see anything the way you would normally.  The light produced by the false self only illuminates objects of its own creation and we mistakenly believe this is the only way to perceive reality.

In fact, the illumination of awakening is a subtle light, a light that exists only in the darkness left behind when the false self has vanished into the night.  The light of the natural self comes through knowing, not seeing.

Close the eyes of the false self and allow the light of awareness to dawn...

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Please Help Spread the Word About Intuisdom...

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Today is a break from the normal posting due to a huge amount of work going into the new site, the upcoming online spiritual development course and two new books in the works.  Please stop by the new site and register for our e-mail list to hear an audio version of the first chapter of my book, Finding Fulfillment with Intuisdom, and receive a copy of Intuisdom Guide to Meditation by e-mail.  If you sign up to follow this blog, sign up for the e-mail list or connect via Facebook you will be informed as new material comes out.

Spiritual development has been made into a complex and costly endeavor that is often available only to the few, when it should be a simple matter available to everyone.  It is our most important goal to provide the highest quality education and materials for natural spiritual development at the lowest cost to as many people as possible.  If what you read on this blog or on our Web site speaks to you, please help us help others with the observations of Intuisdom by placing links on your own page or blog, Facebook page or wherever you feel appropriate.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

The Mystery of Mystery Schools...

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Here's the mystery:  How are they teaching something so completely simple and calling it a mystery?

Real spiritual development is about as far away from hocus pocus as you could possibly imagine. The magic is that there is no magic, no special words, no secret hand signs.

The real mystery is only that we can miss it in plain sight.  But we don't have to.  It's right in front of you if you stop looking for the trick...

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Change is Change...

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We can make it so difficult!

How we experience it is purely a perceptual matter and everything that can come with it is either tossed aside or lived with simple perceptual differences.

So what is it composed of?  Does it require we undergo something?  Must we suffer?  Does it have to be a breach birth every time?

Is it a monster we run from because it is so problematic?  Why is it so problematic?  Isn't it just, well, change?

Without change there is no sustenance, no fulfillment, no texture, no growth...

Change is just newness.  Change is just difference.  Change is just change.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Jumping at Shadows...

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In our everyday world we so often feel that we have to take a stand in how we perceive things, that we have to find and apply an orientation that is US to what might otherwise just be something flowing by.  This tendency not only colors what we think is coming at us with our own projections, but, more importantly, reinforces the impression that we live in a world that threatens us with a maddening swirl of uncertainty that we have to reach out and control.

The progressive choices that seem obvious to this perception are those that just make things better, happier, prettier.  What's harder to see is that what is happening around us at the normal level of our experience is basically neutral, that attempting to make ourselves happier by counteracting the negatives we think we see misses the point that there is nothing wrong with most of what is around us to begin with.

Now, before you leap to your feet and exclaim loudly that there are wrongs in the world and bad people doing bad things that we need to proactively deal with to maintain safety, let alone quality of life... sure, there are things we need to deal with and watch out for; however, if we spend most of our time chasing bogeymen of shadows of our own expectations and fears we will not only miss what feeds us--the source that is the natural world--but also pass by the opportunity to participate in what is around us, exactly what brings us the very fulfillment we seek.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

It's All in a Word...

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Actually, nothing could be further from the truth--nothing is really in a word at all.  Words are just pointers, and yet we have managed to let them become us, to take the place of what we would otherwise live in, what we would otherwise actually be. 

Yes, poetry and even prose can be beautiful, but this beauty is a relative thing.  When those forms of language help our minds to relax the grasping and sense and flow with reality, they can be a wonderful relief to our suffering.  If we can feel the difference between words and reality, words can be a tool with great flexibility, utility and even artistry. 

So it is with all things that we mistake for reality itself.  If we can adjust our primary orientation to the flow of the natural world and allow abstractions to be only what they are, the flow can lead us into a world much vaster, much richer, much larger and much more meaningful than imagination can even begin to suggest. 

Peace,

Anton Elohan

From a Word to a Moment in Space and Time...

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Over the last several posts I have talked about the simple nature of the perceptual shift necessary to move from the false self to the natural self.  This shift is essentially from focusing on what you and the world around you are as objects or abstractions or fixed things (e.g. "I am good" or "I am bad" or "I am a carpenter" or "I am in pain") to the environment those abstractions are perceived within.  In other words, to make this shift we no longer identify with these abstractions as the primary way we perceive reality and instead experience the space and time we exist in first.

Can you see that this is another way of looking at what it means to be "in the moment"?  Can you see that being "in the moment" doesn't mean that nothing else exists, that there isn't abstraction, that there isn't anything to take care of or do, but that the first orientation, the context those things occur in is what everything starts with? Can you see that the abstractions that otherwise take over your life and rob you of your perspective are only as large as you make them and that as they shrink the space in each moment grows?

Peace,

Anton Elohan

In the End There Was the Word...

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The start of the process into spiritual development as the natural self is identifying the line you draw around you, the border, the definition.  The initial and the most important wall to breach into spiritual reality is the abstractions, the beliefs, the words that only refer to who you are, but aren't actually who you are.

What stands between you and the natural self is as simple as a word...

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Perspective Shifting...

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Shifting between the perspectives and perceptual modes of the false self and the natural self is as simple as shifting focus from an object to the room the object is in, from the thing to its environment, from the boat to the ocean.  To do this you only have to realize that no thing exists only by itself or possesses a single and fixed definition, that what creates the shape, borders and meaning of a thing is only your perspective.

Often what appears to hold the shape and meaning of a thing in place is the agreement of many people or a written definition, something that only actually shapes belief, not reality. But, the real issue in perspective shifting is that once we realize the fluid nature of reality and that it is our attempts to fix it into specific forms that keeps us blocked from the potential and connection to the source that fluidity brings it can initially seem difficult to grasp and maneuver within it, to mine it, to use it.

Ahh... so not just the view changes, but the entire character, the way we interact with our surroundings! Yes, we must swim...

Peace,

Anton Elohan

The Natural Self and Immersion in Flow...

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The natural self is completely unlike the false self.  The natural self has no perception of itself and the world around it as things, as abstractions, as fixed entities.

To the natural self life is a flow of textured energy and it interacts with that energy as a fish would swim in a river.  It lives inside the energy and is a part of the energy; it senses life as an ongoing, rippling current.

The natural self has no sense of change as a good or bad thing.  It doesn't even distinguish between change and transformation. And yet it knows where it is going because the flow tells it.

The natural self is in a constant state of birth without self reflection.  It simply is.  It beautifully is.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

The False Self and the Threat of Change...

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When we see things through the lens of the false self in the false world, change is a disruption, or a gap between discrete abstractions, an impossibility, really. Thus the false self resists going where it perceives nothing is (which is understandable).  To the false self this basically represents or feels like impending death.  Change threatens the false self and it therefore acts to protect itself.

Real change, transformative change, requires a transition from one semi-stable form to another, but the false self can only grow incrementally in changes that really amount to only a little more or a little less of something.

This is the trap of the false self, its container, its limiter.  But, from its perspective it makes complete sense.

So, the only solution is to change perspectives.  Is there another viable perspective available?

Stay tuned...

Peace,

Anton Elohan

The Rain Falls Through Me...

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When natural rhythms run through everything but us we miss life itself...

The rain falls through me to the earth.
The grass grows through me to the sky.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

The Doorway and Limitations of Imagination...

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Imagination is larger than the false world and a doorway beyond it.

However, the natural world is infinitely larger than imagination.

In spiritual growth imagination is only a teaser and must be released to discover the full truth.

Peace,

Anton Elohan