Shadow Self - A Dream Reflection

It has been a long time that I did not remember my dream. My daily routine is getting up 5:00 am, meditate one and half hours, relax about ten to fifteen minutes and start morning preparation going to work.

This morning's routine was not much different except, I relaxed a full thirty minutes. When I woke up, I was able to remember some part of my dream.

"My sister and I met in a restaurant, and she was expecting to meet her long time friend, a Falun Gong member. When she arrived, they exchanged gifts of image of deity, religious figure that I am somewhat familiar with. The figure of deity is made out of either ceramic or hard cardboard. They are to be hung or put on the table for worship. Strange thing was that I was silent throughout dinner. I did not say much and was uncomfortable of my own behavior of having nothing to say. I also sensed my companion's discomfort of my lack of response and little conversation. Before leaving the dinner, I searched for waiter and asked him for a bowl of water; I explained to him that I needed a bowl of water to wash my face. Of course before I get to the water, I was awoke and suddenly realized that I have over slept."

During the last two days, I have just studied the course of "Metaphysical Sciences" about shadow self, the part of selves that we do not like, the part that we feel ashamed of. We usually are not consciously aware of the shadow self, they are dormant and buried deep into of our psyche. I am wondering during the dream I might have experienced a part of my shadow self. I remember that I felt extremely uncomfortable of my strange behavior but also felt that I couldn't do much about it.

The other element of my dream was a bowl of water that I requested from restaurant waiter so that I can clean my face. Perhaps I still put a lot of emphasis on my appearance even though my years of metaphyscial study should indicate that I do not dwell too much on appearance alone. But in the dream I felt that I need to take care of my face so that I will look presentable in any circumstance. Apparently there is a great concern of how I present myself in a subconscious level, and it has a sense of insecurity if I don't keep a tab on it.

I wish I was lucid in that dream. The dream was like many dreams that I had in the past, my logical mind was completely turned off, nothing that happened was out of ordinary. I went along with the odd scenario, oblivious that I was in the illusory state of mind.

Do I know myself?

Later on, I drew a tarot card, it was "Seven of Swords".

The Journey Begins

I got the first six courses and eleven meditations from University of Metaphysical Sciences. The first course is World Religions. I am not particularly interested in religion, but ever since the existence of mankind, religion plays a very important role in humanity's searching for meaning and truth of life, therefore the knowledge of origin and evolution of world religions is essential for understanding how we, as a species, evolve consciously and spiritually.

After started reading the materials, I found out that there are so much that I don't know and don't remember. For instance, I supposed to be familiar with Buddhism, but truly I only know a fraction of it's essential teachings.

The other day, I tried meditation CD during lunch hour, the music and the voice was so beautiful and relaxing, I lost track of time. In the midst of meditation, suddenly I realized that I was taking my lunch time. By that time, I have already listened about fifty minutes of guided meditation. I have taken one and half hour lunch that day.

A Meditational Ritual

I have so much trouble stilling my mind while meditatng. I feel that I am going ten steps backward from my progress. I sense that if I just plunge myself ino meditation without preparatory work, I will end up fighting and clearing the cobweb and all intruding thoughts. The precious time that I spend will be unproductive.

I now set a clearing process for meditation.

1. Say a prayer - Dear God, my Higher Self and my spiritual guides, please help me still my mind so that the magic presence of God will reveal itself to me.
2. Resonent tuning on "OM" sound 7 times while exhaling on deep breath. The humming of "Om" sound raises the frequency and vibration.
3. Imagine the golden light energy from my Higher Self descending down from heaven, entering in Crown Chakra, and gradually permeate every cell, every atom of my being. The light now expands, radiates out 10-ft. all around for the duration of the meditation. The golden light is to protect and repel external undesirable influences, and it purifies entire being so that I am ready to meet my guides, converse with Higher Self, and be one with God.
4. Affirmation - I am the infinite universal consciousness, infinite in love, infinite in wisdom and knowledge, infinite in abundance and prosperity. Be still and know I am God.
5. Relaxing every muscle of body, gradually move the focus of relaxation from toe to head and reach a state of "body comfortably at sleep, mind fully awake and aware".
6. Stay silent for the duration of meditation about one and half hours.

A triumph for all

Over the past 2 and 1/2 months, I was working on trying to settle Newmans Own account.

We started with having disagreement with physical inventory count at the end of Dec 31. Then we have discrepancy on sales and cash receipts. I took their every request with a sincere intention to help and to resolve. I meticulously laid out the detail of my analysis in a way that was easier for them to understand. I radiated good will every step of the way. Sometimes their request could take quite sometime for me to accomplish, but I did it with no complaint. I work only toward a common good among people. I was very proud of myself, I believe God within me will be proud too.

Finally, all the good intentions paid off. I got an email from Newmans Own on last Friday. Joan Williams in Newmans Own agreed with our inventory value, agreed that we overpaid them $72,000 due to no fault of anyone but our programming error. An adversity turns into opportunity for future cordial business relationship.

I believe what happened is that I am able to accommodate other people . Knowing what I know, I have completely turned away from the conventional business dealing of winning and losing. I saw people in Newmans Own trying to do their very best from their business perspective. The only way to play fair is honestly assessing the situation and helping them see the truth with irrefutable data. I am happy with the outcome. The situation is resolved with good will beautifully established among all of us making it possible for further successful partnership.

Getting a Ph. D. In Metaphysical Sciences

I have enrolled the Ph. D. program in the University of Metaphysical Sciences. It is time for me to work on organized and disciplinary higher knowledge learning.

I have worked on many programs, read many books, I have bits and pieces of broad knowledge and direct experiences from meditation to astral travel, but I feel that I need a more structured learning.

In this day and age, a higher degree or credential is a must if one wants to establish oneself in the field of metaphysics. I have done research about several distant learning schools, the University of Metaphysical Sciences is by far the best and the most affordable. The curriculum are very well rounded, covering many topics that I like to gain in-depth knowledge. I read several sample courses and know the courses will be in attunement with my five years exploration of human consciousness. I am happy to have taken that initiative, and very excited about the study.

Revisit Jonathan Parker' Enlightenment Series Program

I have not read many books that are really inspiring lately, so I decided to revisit Jonathan Parker's tape program that set me on the path five years ago. I tell you what! It is still awesome! I am planning to listen to the program while commuting to and from work, and I will use forty five minutes of my lunch hour to work on the meditation that usually followed the lecture.

Today, I listened to the topic of space and time. I found this topic very difficult to understand if I view it from our physical point of aspect. Dr. Jonathan Parker elegantly explained the concept in a non-technical fashion.

In a nutshell, space and time is a human construct based on our limited experience and understanding of true nature of our universe(s). But when we reach expansive awareness of other realities and dimensions, we then are able to understand that past, present and future practically exist simultaneously in higher plane of existence.

I remember several years ago I had a conversation with a lady who is able to psychically attuned to other people's energy field. I mentioned to her that I like to accomplish highest level of consciousness this life time. She replied that if I thought a lifetime was a long time then thought again, a lifetime was only a blink of an eye in eternity.

At that time, I didn't really appreciate the fact that my hard working life is only a blink of an eye, if it is true then all my suffering and my sacrifice will amount to very little in the scheme of thing of what we call eternity. Later on, I realized that if that is true then all the suffering, misery, pain that a lot of people have to endure in our life time is only a blink of an eye. Well, if I can endure a blink of an eye of suffering and enjoy eternity of happiness then I think we have a bargin.

Well, I have just sidetracked of the topic of space and time, but it is comforting to know that in reality all seeming tragedy, happiness, wealth or poverty are only learning tools that help us get back to our state of pure glorious being.

A truly grand production - The Living

I don't have much insight from my meditative practice. Lately I can't even remember my dream when I wake up in the morning.

Good and deep meditation is not easy to attain. Sometimes I set out to have great expectation for a good session, but I ended up abandon it after half an hour's sitting. But other times, I will have total expansion of my being with not even a thread of thought. At those moment, the inner mind was blank, expansive, a sense of sweetness floated around my forehead; a rare moment indeed!

I started to contemplate of how to increase the effectiveness of meditation. One of the technique is to focus on the area between the eyebrows, the spiritual third eye, the other ones I use often are to listen to our inner sound or to focus on our inhale and exhale of our breath, yet another is just don't focus on anything at all.

I found that the eyebrows and inner sound focus can help cultivate concentration ability, but ultimately the goal is to focus on nothing. So, I started to focus on nothing. Why bother with other methods when there is a sure way to heaven? But the fact is it is difficult not to think of anything. Given our daily encounter of many mundane, unenlightened people and situations ( including myself), and the fact that our livelihood are dependent on it made it difficult to ignore these nuisance.

That is where Jonathan Parker's "Enlightenment Series" teaching is so effective. The nuisance, the inconvenience, the interference, the quarrel between people, the jealousy display among colleague, the stress on the job, the argument among family members are vehicles that our higher self use to strengthen our integrity and our character. It is a drama of life consented by us, scripted and directed by our higher self, and we play a starring role with supporting actors and actresses being our family members, our co-workers, long time friends and even casual acquaintances. All things, all people work together for the good of all. It is truly a grand production that in some cases even movie will be pale in comparison of its intrigues and synchronicity of the unfolding events.