Turning Inward

“This requires a turning about in the seat of the soul, a changing of the momentum of consciousness-not outward, but inward. Not as an escape from the world-it is not something you have to do all day, every day. But you spend time in prayer and meditation. You spend time in forgiveness. You spend time breathing and relaxing.

You begin to allow changes to occur in the choices you are making, so that they come more into alignment with your growing understanding of yourself as a creator, as a soul. You begin to change your environment. You paint the color of the walls of your bedroom a different color, that which brings a sense of pleasantness to you. You change your physical environment completely by moving into a different apartment. Many of you know perfectly well that often it means the changing of relationships. And initially, this does make sense.

But there is a point in which your realize that you could keep changing relationships ad nauseam and never get anywhere. You realize that now it is time to settle down, be with the one you are with-or the ones you are with-and yet utilize your time with them to discover what patterns have been running you. It is time for Self awareness--turning the momentum of the mind back toward the Self. Time to ask yourself, “Why do I think what I think? Why did I see what I saw? Why did I react the way that I reacted?”

Eventually, the soul that is truly committed to awakening does not flee uncomfortable situations until it believes it has fully extracted all the wisdom that it can. There is a way of knowing when that occurs and we’ll get to that later. In short, when there is just a quiet sense of peace, and you can look upon the players in the experiences you have just had with perfect equanimity and see them as perfectly innocent, and you detect that there is nothing in the body that is not at peace--the heart is not racing, the shoulders are not tight--you truly understand that you are not in fear, then it is time to move on.

Remember always that all events are neutral. In large measure, the process of awakening is a process whereby you dissolve the value you have placed upon certain ideas and perceptions of what life is and what life is for. Yes, there are times you will be troubled, as you come to realize that what you thought the world was for, and everything you have been putting your energy into, means nothing. Often, this precipitates a period of what has been called by certain mystics the “dark night of the soul.” It is really not the dark night of the soul. It is the dark night of the ego, and the healing of the soul.”

~ Excerpt from The Way of Mastery

What if you took a little bit more inquiry of yourself? Just simply becoming more aware of how and why you Be. Once you are aware, turn inward, its empowering to know that from there you can choose differently if you desire to do so. To speak, think differently. Maybe your actions also start to shift in a way that feels better.Try it. Instead of looking for your peace or answers externally, what if you started going inwards first? Then what could be possible!?