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modern mystics

Live in the Center of Your Being

January 24, 2018 By Cara Lumen

Our Luminous Legacy 

“The Master lives in the center of the universe, which turns out to be the center of herself.  When things seem to be in discord return to the center.”
Stephen Mitchell, Second Book of Tao, 24 

What does it mean to live in the center of the Universe?  How do you do that?  I went exploring.

Where is the Center of the Universe?

There are several metaphors for the concept of universe.  It begins with words like Great Mystery and All-That-Is. One metaphor is a web of life in which we are each – what? A strand?  A knot?  The web of life sees us all as connected strands in a web that encompasses everything.

That includes humans, animals, plants, oceans, mountains, all one energy – not just on this planet but in the galaxy, stars, black holes –  whatever is out there. All one web of life.  All one whatever-we-are.

Even though I feel my connection with others, the metaphor of a web makes me feel like a separate strand or worse, as a separate knot. I understand that my actions affect others.  I also understand that the actions of others affect me. Because we’re all one energy.

But I still feel separate. I don’t want to feel like a knot, or a strand, I want to feel like ONE!

Then there’s the metaphor of Cosmic Soup

I feel a bit more connected with the metaphor of Cosmic Soup because I’m not a separate strand.  I also know that if I put too much of a particular seasoning into it, that will affect the whole.  And what happens to the cosmic soup if I’m not drawn to the flavor the other person adds? It makes me feel helpless. I guess I’d like to feel the universal energy has a higher calling and can absorb and transmute negative energy.

It can, of course; but again, I feel connected, yet separate.

Find an image that makes you feel one

Through my shamanic meditative journeying, I’ve connected with the heartbeat of nature.  I can feel my heartbeat connect with the heartbeat of the earth.  I can feel my heartbeat meld with all of nature.  I can feel it blending, harmonizing into an all-encompassing heartbeat. One rhythm. For everything.  It makes me feel very connected to the heights and widths and depth of our planet.  It’s an inclusive, connective experience.  I can feel my heartbeat as one with the heartbeat of nature, and I feel connected and an integral part of nature – that we are all one heartbeat.

Then I began to think of the universe, of a Cosmic Heart.  One, pulsating, in-rhythm, all-inclusive heart.  I feel the rhythm. I feel the connection. The oneness of the heartbeat resonates with me.

Light is another metaphor that helps me feel part of the whole.  When I feel myself as light.  See others as light.  Join our light together, become one light. One’s individuality disappears in light. That is what we’re looking for, to lose our separateness and experience our one-ness.

Cosmic consciousness is another metaphor.  I like to join my consciousness with the like-minded consciousness of fellow transformational thinkers.

But feeling separate is common for me in my body suit.  I have to elevate my awareness to – what? Nothing with a human form, nothing with human limitations and yet I am human, so…

Find a metaphor that helps you lose your individual humans in the experience of Oneness.

How to experience your soul

A soul is etheric.  It is vast; it is core.  What if I felt myself as soul?  And that soul simply blends into and is part of an oversoul of All That Is?  Blending, melding, becoming one with an over-arching soul. That would help me feel oneness.

Sometimes in deep meditation, I disappear from my body and feel I’m simply an awareness in the void.

How do you access a feeling of being one with and in the center of the universe?

“The Master lives in the center of the universe, which turns out to be the center of herself.”  

“When things seem to be in discord return to the center.”

How do you return to the center?

How do you move back into the center or the universe?  To the center of you – your oneness with All That Is?

Meditation will quickly move you from the chaotic physical plane into the stillness of your inner world. When I go deep enough in meditation, my body disappears, and I am flowing in nothingness.

I can move to an awareness of oneness by consciously feeling and expanding the light within me.

A light meditation

Find a quiet environment. Move into an inner place of stillness and begin to let your body disappear from your awareness. In the center of your being, feel a radiant light.  Notice its color, its consistency, its movement. Notice as that light within begins to radiate. Let it fill every part of your body until you become simply light, not a human in a body suit with thoughts and beliefs, but a radiant pulsating light.

Feel that light expand beyond your body and out into the vastness where you become aware of other lights.  You know you belong with them. You are all part of the One Light.

Merge your light with the others and watch the light expand and become one all-encompassing, pulsating, energy.  A heartbeat of the universe that includes and encompasses and absorbs you into its welcoming presence.

Feel the power of that collective light.

Feel that ever-deepening connection.

Absorb that.

Is that how it feels to be within and absorbed into the All That Is? Is that the center of your being?  Is that the center of the universe?

Explore that feeling for a moment.

“The Master lives in the center of the universe, which turns out to be the center of herself.  When things seem to be in discord return to the center.”
Stephen Mitchell, 2nd Book of Tao, 24

Live at the center of your being. Now.

Our Luminous Legacy Series:

Unleash the Power of Your Inner Garden

How to be Nothing

How Modern Mysticism Will Save the World

You might also like:

17 – Exploring the Village of Nothingness (Podcast)

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We Are Part of a Larger Spiritual Orde

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Inner-World Discoveries 
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Filed Under: Our Luminous Legacy, Spiritual Expansion Tagged With: modern mystics, Spiritual Expansion, transformational thinking

What Wave Are You Riding?

January 17, 2018 By Cara Lumen

It’s rather obvious that our world and our planet are changing. People all over the world are moving into divisiveness and adamantly opposing points of view.  It’s not as simple as fear of change versus an eagerness to progress, it’s about not seeing ourselves as one, interconnected energy.

So we have these different waves in the cosmic soup.  Some run deep, some skim the surface, some crash into the rocks and onto the shore.  And each wave causes a ripple that affects the whole cosmic ocean.

The wake-up call

Some of us see this overview, we have an awareness of the collective consciousness.  Others have no awareness of a form of unification, they only see and feel their separateness, their opposing views.

The core belief system we luminous workers embrace is that we are one light, one interconnected energy and that our thoughts create our reality.  That means we have great control over our life experience, we change our thoughts, our beliefs, our words and our actions, and our world heals. We can do that.

What wave are you riding?

If you are aware of how interconnected we are and how deeply we affect each other, that’s a major wave to ride – a wave to solidify our collective light energy. Not everyone has achieved that awareness yet.

As a rider of this cosmic wave of light, you know how vital your own actions and thoughts are to the collective consciousness.  You work daily to increase and clarify your inner light.

How can you take that a step further?  How can you find an even different wave of wholeness? What will it look like?

Those of us who see ourselves as light need to bring others into that same vision.  We have to see everything as light, to hold it in light, to see its kindness and inclusiveness and collective love.  When we see it, it strengthens the energy around the increased layer of inclusive light.  Other are drawn in.  All are affected.

By our thoughts.

Consciously radiate light

Each day, even several times a day, sit quietly and feel your spiritual heart, the one that connects everything and everyone.  And simply be with that awareness.  Feel that spiritual light expand and encompass your whole body.  Feel it fill your entire room.  Your neighborhood, your community, the world.

Fill your spiritual heart with a connection of light to all that is.  Everything on the planet.  And simply radiate light out into all you can imagine.

Daily.

Every day.

Radiate light.

The different wave you can ride is to lift up others into the light.  Anchor yourself in your daily practice, spend time sharing your light with our world and be and know the power of our Light Oneness.

Make a choice

How awakened are you?  How can you become more awake? Who do you need to be with?  What do you need to think about?  What do you need to change about yourself in order to increase your own light? How do you become more of a positive change-maker on the planet?

Raise your sights.  Look for the light.  It is everywhere. In everything.  In everyone.

Be the radiant light you are.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

How Modern Mysticism Will Save the World

How Your Spiritual Life Changes You

How to Be Nothing

Hold the Vision of Light

How Your Belief System Dictates Your Choices

Filed Under: Alligned Choices, Spiritual Expansion, Transformational Community Tagged With: modern mystics, transformational thinking, world service

How Modern Mysticism Will Save the World

January 10, 2018 By Cara Lumen

OUR LUMINOUS LEGACY

You and I are modern mystics, whether we claim the title or not. And modern mysticism can save the world.

Anthropologist and shamanist Hank Wesselman wrote the book MedicineMaker: Mystic Encounters on the Shaman’s Path in 1998 – twenty years ago. He saw hope then, and we know we’re in more dire straits today. I need to see and understand and embrace the hope he holds out.

What were you doing twenty years ago?  How aware were you?  I was in year three of a five-year program to become a licensed spiritual practitioner in the Center for Spiritual Living, in Santa Rosa, California.  I had recently come off of 15 years of wholistic exploration and training in New York City.  I was already a “modern mystic.”  But as I read this one chapter in Hank’s book I began to find the vocabulary to explain to us how we, as modern mystics, can and will alter this collision course the world seems to be on.

Here’s how Hank defines a modern mystic:

“You are a modern mystic if you:

1- Have a strong sense of social justice.

2 – Understand the importance of physical, mental, and spiritual balance and harmony.

3 – Are environmentally savvy. You see a pattern of connection of all. You understand that everything and everyone is part of a pattern and thus interconnected.

4 – Are committed to achieving the direct, personal transformative experience of the sacred.

5 – Most believe in the existence of more than one level of reality. The modern mystic understands that there are also the non-ordinary realities, the subjective dream worlds or spirit worlds, where the laws of physics and cause and effect may not work in the same way.

Take it a step further into these next ideas which I have explored and experienced as I delve more deeply into shamanism. See how much of this is true for you:

6 – The modern mystic believes that some individuals have the ability to enter or journey into these alternate realities to accomplish certain things and gain help, direction, and knowledge from the inner sources of wisdom and/or spiritual entities that reside there.

7 – They believe in the existence of spirit helpers and spirit teachers, who, in turn, are thought to provide the seeker with power and knowledge, protection and support, that one cannot access on one’s own.

8 – Modern mystics believe in the existence of spiritual or mystical power, perceived by virtually all as an invisible essence or force that pervades everything in the universe and that can be highly concentrated in certain places, objects, and living beings.

9 – It is understood that everyone can learn how to access, accumulate, and focus this power, and that one’s health, well-being, and success in life are all dependent on being able to increase and maintain one’s personal supply of it.

10 – There is also a belief in a personal energy body—the aspect of the self that carries this power as life force and which provides the etheric pattern around which the physical body is formed.

11- Most modern mystics also feel a genuine distance from and disaffection for Western allopathic medicine. They seek alternative solutions.”

What I nearly missed

I was feeling discouraged as I saw so many people with absolute opposing views on basic values and priorities. Whatever their reasons, they seemed caught up in the present and had no concern for our future – the impact our choices today have on the rest of our lives and on our children. Many people are simply focused on survival.

I felt outnumbered and alone.  Where were all these mystics, these people working to raise the collective conscious?

I found them online. I found them in the groups that I participated in, in online courses I take.  I joined with them in group meditations and continued to expand my own awareness.

This idea that there are so many active mystics in the world today is comforting because I know those of us who are aware that we are lightworkers are all doing our individual work.

Expanding my own spiritual practice makes me feel more valuable as an active participant in a larger movement, and brings me a comforting awareness that my spiritual focus can join with others all over the planet who are thinking and feeling and working in the same vibrational manner, to change our world.

There’s tremendous power in the energy of groups and even though, as an 85-year-old metaphysician in the conservative mid-west, I sometimes feel alone, I am not alone.  I am part of the powerful steadily expanding vibrational thinking that’s gaining power on our planet. There are a lot of us on this mystical journey. And we are changing our world.

Here’s the turning point:

According to Hank’s book, in 1996 some 24% of Americans fell into this category of mystic.  That was over twenty years ago. The internet has helped us find each other, and I am on group meditations and shamanic courses with people from all over the world.  Yes, we mystics have the planet covered. We’re everywhere!

Now we need to increase our collective light. We do that through our ever-deepening spiritual practice and by joining with like-minded mystics to radiate light.

Mystics are in all cultures; they have migrated from all religions.  They are everywhere.  It’s incredibly powerful to join in a group meditation with like-minded people from all over the world. There’s an amazing sense of connection and an even greater certainty in our collective power to change the world.

What has to happen

Anthropologists call it a “cultural revitalization” movement. That means there’s a large group of us who see that the current way is not working and we are willing to explore a whole new set of ways to see ourselves, our problems and the solutions.

A whole new way. That means questioning all our choices, releasing a great deal of stuff and starting from scratch to develop and devise a pattern of living that’ll keep our planet livable and our lives sustainable in a state of profound peace and harmony.

That means a lot of change

That means a lot of letting go, of re-assessing, of being willing to change what we believe and how we think our lives should be.

It calls for visionary thinking 

What does visionary thinking mean? It means finding ways to address overpopulation, land conservation, how technology is affecting the mental development of our children and our own social abilities, our livelihoods. What we will do when there’s no more land upon which to grow food, what we will do when the oceans rise and the ports all close and all trading ceases.  Everything is so interconnected that when one strand is damaged, other strands have to change and compensate.

Fortunately, there are modern mystics working in all of these areas.  We, as fellow mystics, must listen to them and support them. And if called to do so, join in the work.

We modern mystics must raise our vibration

You can begin to heal the world by examining your own thinking.

What you expect your life to look like is probably not going to be how it turns out. Technology and innovation are rapidly changing everything. How do young people train for jobs that don’t even exist yet – but will when they are ready to enter the workforce?

Be aware in every stage of your life that your options change, that new opportunities continually unfold, and find ever-expanding ways to offer your own gifts and talents and life purpose so that the choices you make are in alignment with your mission in life.

Question everything

Notice the repercussions of everything you do.  Whether it is what you recycle or how far you drive or the activism work you do, allow your values to be fluid and adjust them to the ever-changing flow of nature and the expansion of your own spiritual awareness.

Question your physical body-suit life.

Expand your spiritual life and go deeper and broader and higher as you explore the invisible realms.

Be aware of the repercussions of your choices on others.

The waste, the pollution, the consumption, the warfare, the suppression are numbing.  We are all part of the same planet.  We are all connected. What we do affects the whole.  All of us. Each of us.

Respond to new information

Scientists continue to uncover new knowledge about our universe, our planet, our potential.  Keep abreast of those discoveries, particularly in areas that call to you. Then put that new knowledge to work in your own life and show others how to follow suit.

Know the repercussions of your action

I’m a vegan.  I know about the food chain process.  My personal choice is to save one animal at a time through my own actions. One person’s action can add to a collective result.

So much of the damage to our planet comes when people are not aware.  Not aware of where their plastic discard will end up, not aware of the impact of their anger, not aware…  We, as modern mystics, must monitor all we do and continue to raise our vibration in the world.

You are a member of the Transformational Community

If you resonate to any of these ideas, you are a modern mystic and a member of the Transformational Community. We may not call ourselves that, but it’s time that we recognize there are many others worldwide who are working to raise the collective consciousness of our world.  We do that through our private, spiritual practice, and we find other like-minded change-makers and join with them, as activists, in group meditations.  We are finding each other and that is empowering. Our collective light is expanding.

How do you choose to take your modern mysticism to the next level?  

This is how I do it. I continue to deepen my personal shamanist work and explore the invisible realms daily.  I actively focus on deepening my connection and awareness of nature.  I mindfully radiate light to our world each day. I write articles like this to serve as a guide and encouragement for other spiritual explorers.

We are old souls, we mystics.  We are the elders.  We must do the consciousness work that helps others understand that we are one energy, one light, one essence.  And as such, we are responsible for the well-being of each other. Our whole.  Our world.

Mindfully raise your own vibration to your innate wholeness, and it will broadly affect the world around you.

There is hope.  With each deepened awareness and each conscious choice.

Welcome, modern mystic, to the save-our-planet project. We can save our world.

Our Luminous Legacy Series:

Unleash the Power of Your Inner Garden

How to be Nothing

To receive the weekly Inner-World Discoveries,
join the Deeper Song Community 

Filed Under: Our Luminous Legacy Tagged With: modern mystics, Spiritual Expansion, transformational community

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