INNER WISDOM

By Aruna Byers

Psychic phenomenon, or siddis, as mystical powers are called in India, has always been a mystery to the human mind. Throughout history, those with these “powers” have been highly revered like the oracles of ancient Greece, or feared like the “witches” who were put to death in the US and Europe for their healing abilities. At the end of the last Millennium, abilities such as clairvoyance, clairaudience and clairsentience have become more common, but they are still considered “gifts” that happen only to special people. It is believed by many that these “gifts” are a spiritual achievement; so spiritual seekers who don’t have them aspire to get them.

Because they are so fascinating, curiosity about them has opened doors to valid spiritual teachings and this has created a great shift in consciousness on our planet. But like anything powerful, there are those that will use them for good and others who will use them for self-serving purposes. Those who have opened their hearts and are sharing their spiritual gifts with the primary intention of helping others have done great service to humanity. But great harm can also be done if the heart of the giver is not open and lower astral energies are using a body.

In Japan, a typical channel charges at least five times more than a trained, experienced psychologist or psychotherapist, yet people flock to them for advice, demonstrating that spiritual powers are valued much more than education and experience. But typically, those seeking advice and those giving advice in this manner have no idea if the information that is being delivered is from a high level of consciousness or from a mischievous entity that wants to create havoc at their expense. Unfortunately, most channels do not know how to tell the difference, and if they did, they would not know how to change the situation. From my observation, the majority of people who begin to channel spontaneously assume that whatever they are told is accurate and do nothing to verify that belief. Instantly they are in business with a big price tag attached to their services. One of the most difficult parts of my job as a professional channel and now as a spiritual guide has been to tell people that information they have paid dearly for is rubbish.

This does not have to be the case, as there are many things a channel can do to insure that what they receive from other dimensions of consciousness is from the highest level of awareness and has a high percentage of accuracy. I wish I had known these things when I began channeling but at that time there were few people who had any experience with channeling and the ones that I knew were not willing to give me any advice.

The unseen mystery that creates psychic phenomenon seems to be indiscriminate. People who have been involved with spiritual teachings for many years may be passed by while someone who has neither read a spiritual book nor learned to meditate suddenly can read auras and hear messages from God. I have seen housewives with no introduction to spiritual teachings suddenly become world famous channels. Some people seem to be born with these abilities. In Okinawa, many of the women I have met have a natural sensitivity and seeing energies and receiving messages from spirits is a natural part of their everyday life. It is as special to them as doing laundry. Karma, genetics or living near power spots could all account for this, but I would like to introduce another perspective.

In the early 90s, while living in Hamburg, Germany, I invited two NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) trainers to lead a practitioner training in my area. One of them was quite fascinated by my channeling ability because I was the first channel he had ever met. His curious mind was highly skeptical. He wanted to know how I did what I did, but I could not give him a satisfactory explanation. I told him it just happened spontaneously and that I would also like to know why some people could do it and others couldn’t. To satisfy his curiosity and mine, he proposed that the three of us work together on an NLP study of channeling to find out the qualities and behaviors that all channels have in common. NLP practitioners call this type of study “modeling,” and its ultimate goal is to be able to replicate the modeled behavior in others.

Our study was based on interviewing eight professional channels and their channeled guides while noting all the minute details about how each would go in and out of the channeling state. Many hours were also devoted to observing me go through the same process every time we consulted with my channeled teacher, Saint Germain. The results of our study were later published as a book in Germany, presented at an international NLP conference, and used to teach many people how to channel in workshops that I gave in Germany and America. Our model of channeling proved that anybody with beliefs and attitudes similar to the channels we studied could channel. Channeling and the ability to transmit healing energy no longer was a mystery to those familiar with this model.

After the book was published I went to India, and through the grace of my beloved teacher Papaji, was returned to the “natural state.” In the “natural state,” mind is quiet, judgment, fear and desire are gone, repressed emotions are released, and only the present moment exists. In the natural state, where there is no mental or emotional disturbance, a body/mind has “knowing,” an unlimited clarity of awareness that I call “Inner Wisdom.” In the “natural state” I realized that Inner Wisdom and the ability to transmit healing energy are everyone’s birthright, there is nothing unusual or “special” about them at all, and that channeling is comparatively a very poor substitute.

The difference between channeling and being in the natural state is that channeling is limited to what can “come through the channel (ego),” whereas a body/mind without a controlling ego can access the entire ocean of consciousness. As Papaji once said, “Wherever there’s a channel there’s a dam.”

People who go in and out of a channeling state are not completely in the “natural state” because they still have an active ego/mind that believes they are separate from what is being channeled. In reality there is no such thing as separation and there is no such thing as channeling. This is all an illusion. The concept of channeling only exists because ego/mind is running the show and ego/mind acts as the dam (channel) that prevents unlimited access to the total ocean of cosmic consciousness. As long as a dam exists, channeling or spiritual guidance in other forms will not be totally accurate because ego/mind is continuously interpreting and filtering everything to fit into its perception of reality. Our NLP study concluded that it is rare for conscious channeling to be more than 70% accurate because of ego/mind interference. This interference happens because of personal agendas and ego/mind’s limited understanding of the information being received.

The process of conscious channeling occurs when energetic impulses are interpreted into words by the mind. Where do these impulses come from? If they really do come from angels, ascended masters, spaceship commanders, beings from other planets, nature spirits, etc. they are still coming from the same source that also speaks directly to you. That source is your own True Self. All manifestations, seen and unseen, are part of the same consciousness that makes up our True Self, so when guidance is not coming from an ego/mind it is from the True Self, no matter how it is actually delivered. But it is important to know that some entities channeling through humans are ego/mind personalities that are not in touch with the ocean of cosmic consciousness and they are merely providing another ego’s opinion rather than the highest level of awareness. These devious entities will always use the names of highly regarded masters to fool us, so learning discernment with unseen energies is very important to anyone channeling or consulting a channel.

The highest level of awareness is directly available to anyone that is not being completely dominated by ego. The same guidance you can get from an ascended master or angel is available to you directly from the True Self. The True Self gives us guidance all the time, but when our attention is absorbed in ego’s thoughts we are usually not aware of this. Consequently, our True Self must wait for a space between thoughts to give us what we call intuition and inspiration or try to reach us through other sources that we believe are more aware than we are. They are not. They are just helpers that guide us when we cannot access or trust the direct guidance of our True Self.

To channel a message in its clearest possible form the ego/mind needs some understanding about the information being transmitted. This is why scientific information is usually given to a scientist rather than someone with no scientific background, spiritual information is given to someone familiar with spiritual principals, and I could only “channel” in English, not German or Japanese.

When the ego/mind is cooperative and willing to witness the channeling process in a detached way, we can receive unfamiliar information, but when the ego feels threatened it will block whatever it is not comfortable with. While living in Germany I was frequently given German words to say as part of a message, but invariably fear would rise and the flow of the message would stop. From that experience I learned the importance of educating the ego/mind about the channeling process so it is able to relax and let it happen.

The biggest problem with professional channeling is that there are no qualifications, no valid credentials, and it is difficult to determine whether channeled information is worth the price paid for it. Most channels believe that all the information they receive is accurate because they, loving, spiritual beings that they are, have attained the ability to receive it. As a result, lower astral entities and the channel’s devious ego can have great fun manipulating the unsuspecting channel and anyone who seeks this channel’s counsel. Since most of what is transmitted through a channel is advice, or information about past lives and future predictions, it is not easy to know if the information is accurate or not. Consequently, any level of unseen awareness can use an openhearted channel if the one doing the “channeling” does not know how to work with unseen energies.

Here are some criteria you can look for when channeling for yourself or paying for a channeling session: 1) is there any attempt to manipulate or control? 2) Is anything said that makes the channel or the unseen entity seem special? 3) Is anything negative being said? 4) Is flattery being used to coerce you into believing something that does not resonate deep within your soul? If you have any doubts about the source of channeled information ask the entity, “Are you one with the Christ?” If the answer is not an emphatic “Yes,” you are dealing with an entity whose advice you do not want.

When a “spiritual emergency” happened to me in Japan in 1985 I learned first hand the possible dangers of channeling unseen entities. Totally trusting the voices in my head, I believed that my family had been killed in an auto accident and that I had a special mission to fulfill for humanity. They led me on a journey that dramatically affected my life and the lives of others. It was a painful and humiliating experience, one that I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but it was also valuable because it inspired me to learn everything I possibly could about unseen energies and what I needed to do to insure that I was only channeling the highest level of awareness and doing it as clearly as possible. The knowledge I gained as a result of this experience has allowed me to support many people who have begun hearing voices or had strange encounters similar to mine.

Communicating with or channeling spirit guides, angels, ascended masters, nature spirits and pure healing energy is something anyone can do if they want to. Some people are naturally sensitive and have developed these abilities as part of what life has brought them. Those who have blocked their sensitivity as a result of emotional repression or fear of the unknown can reclaim it. The process for doing this is: 1) emotional and mental clearing; 2) opening the heart chakra so that love for Self and “others” raises your vibration and allows contact with the highest level of awareness; 3) learning discernment to insure that the guidance seen, heard or felt is coming from the desired level of awareness before it is shared or acted upon. The universal principal of “like attracts like” is part of the channeling process. If a channel is having a bad day or is emotionally involved in personal problems it is very easy for lower astral energies to appear; and 4) educating the ego so it understands the process and is willing to cooperate. A high percentage of accuracy in channeling depends on a cooperative ego so you can remain centered and detached from the messages or the reaction of a client.

Receiving guidance from the “Higher Self” (I prefer to call it the True SELF) is actually easier and less subject to distortion. It is accessed according to the same principals; the only major difference is that instead of learning how to deal with “others” you must learn how to avoid interference from the ego/mind.

What we commonly refer to as intuition and inspiration is guidance from our True SELF. These gems of clear knowing come when we least expect them, because our True SELF needs to find space between our thoughts to get our attention. Since the ego/mind is constantly thinking, this is not an easy thing to do. So True SELF also communicates to us with energy. When we feel passion for something in our hara, solar plexus or heart, this is our True Self trying to lead us to our best next step. When we ignore these energetic urgings and do what we have been taught to do by cultural conditioning, parental guidance, peer pressure or ego/mind’s directions, we shut down these natural urges and become lost souls, asking others to tell us what to do.

Our True SELF is our divine nature. It is always available to guide the body/mind with Inner Wisdom and will lead us to our highest and best purpose if we pay attention and ACT on its guidance. Action is the key. If we notice our impulses but fail to act on them we block their flow and this makes it harder for our True SELF to guide us.

When we unblock the flow of energy and get the ego/mind to relax, the True SELF can bypass the mind and guide us with automatic writing. It will use our hand to write messages and sometimes it will create beautiful poetry.

To control and avoid feeling emotions some of us live in the mind and others will escape with meditation (if we are spiritual), eating, shopping, drinking, smoking, sex, drugs, etc. Repressed emotions desensitize the body and make it numb. Compulsive behaviors keep it that way. We eventually become afraid to feel again because we believe that so many emotions will be too overwhelming to bear. These avoidance tactics may seem like satisfactory substitutes, but keeping our emotions locked in the body will eventually make us sick and taking pills for this sickness does not necessarily make us better. Some pills (like antibiotics and Prozac) are just different methods of suppressing emotions so, even if they seem to solve the immediate problem, another illness will pop up later.

There is no higher Wisdom available to humanity than Inner Wisdom from the True SELF. When we are able to let go of our personal will and give control of our lives to the True SELF we discover what it means to “live in the flow.”

Accessing Inner Wisdom from the True SELF is the most important step we can take towards fulfilling our spiritual purpose on earth. Without guidance from the True Self on a moment-to-moment basis we miss opportunities and then struggle along trying to find our way. Even if we know what our spiritual purpose is, it is easy for the ego to distract us from our path by creating fear when the True Self leads us out of our comfort zone. The True SELF wants us to grow and expand but the ego feels threatened by this and does whatever it can to limit us to what is familiar. This is when CHOICE and FREE WILL come into play. The most important choice we have in life is whether we are willing to be led into the unknown by the True SELF or be held back by ego’s fear. If we choose to follow the True SELF we will find happiness. The other choice means at least one more lifetime.

Inner Wisdom is not subject to the same distortions as channeling because it does not need a mind to translate it into words. If we pay attention to the movement and flow of energy in the body we will always know what is true for us and what is not. When we act on what we know to be true, this is True SELF expression.

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Aruna Byers is a psychotherapist, business and personal coach, and spiritual guide who lives in Okinawa. Check out her website: www.arunabyers.com