How To Connect with Your Inner Guide,  Essential Self and Inner Sanctuary

I strongly advocate cultivating an inner receptivity, an inner listening and attunement to the signals of the Essential Self. These intuitions are the way the deeper self informs us and guides us.

To begin, set aside time to sit quietly every morning in peaceful contemplation for as long as you can with your journal beside you. This may be familiar if you have meditated before; any practice you are used to will work to quiet the mind and prepare the inner field. The Emergence Process is not a substitute for any basic practices you are already doing but rather an extension or deepening of them.

Set aside a period of time for an at-home spiritual "ad­vance." You can do this simply by arising earlier than usual every morning and using the extra time for this practice.

Choose a time in your life to begin this "advance" when you will not be distracted or interrupted by any major life crisis or transition, such as a journey, a divorce, a move. Once the Emergence Process is deliberately started, it is preferable not to stop it abruptly. If the early morning hours don't work for you, choose another time. Remember, you are preparing for a rendezvous with destiny!

Focus Attention on the Essential Self

If you ask your Essential Self to come into your con­sciousness, it will signal you in some way or another, not necessarily as mine does, and not necessarily in written words. It may happen in flashes, insights, images, or hunch­es.

Watch for synchronicity to show up in your life. Notice everything with a heightened awareness. The signals will come, because it is the very heart's desire of the Essential Self to communicate with you.

When you ask it to communicate more clearly, it will — one way or the other. Expect the unexpected, and an­ticipate the new!


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Release the Pressure of Time Running Out

There is nothing you need to do or accomplish in the Inner Sanctuary. See if you can feel "off duty" Every time you feel the pressure of the thought of time running out, release it. Don't fear; you will still be able to be on time. But releasing the pressure provides the vital freedom needed in the Inner Sanctuary for the Essential Self to come forth. It is vital that you inform the anxious aspects of your local self that there is "all the time in the world," or even better, that you reside in eternity.

In the past, I always had good reasons for not taking the time to practice in this way. I know now that it's an affliction of local self-consciousness to get its pri­orities backward, and that there is nothing more important we can do than give highest priority to our own process of Emergence. There is no greater gift we can give to those we love than ourselves evolved.

Sometimes when I am walking or sitting silently in nature and I want to feel "off duty," I turn on my internal answering machine to pick up the stream of incoming messages from the local self — that endless "to-do list" that seems to pop up whenever I attempt to be still within myself. I place on the internal answering machine an outgoing message to assure the local self that its requests have been recorded and it can relax, knowing its "urgent" messages will be responded to at a later time. I have trained my memory to go back, after my walk or meditation, and check those incoming messages. In this way I don't forget what the local self had requested and can respond as I choose.

Keeping A Journal of Essential Self Messages

Connecting with Your Inner Guide & Essential SelfThroughout the Emergence Process, keep a journal of mes­sages from your Essential Self so you can recognize and establish a relationship with your Inner Guide. This was a key practice in preparing me for my own Emergence.

Gradually, as my Emergence continued, I realized that there was no reason to refrain from accessing that voice all the time, in my knowing, speaking, and acting, as well as my writing. I found that when I don't access the voice, it wells up and signals me through a sense of depression or confu­sion. Depression is often a signal of a growth impulse that is attempting to attract your attention. The key is to seek the deeper meaning behind the pain and respond.

What did the voice or inspired thoughts tell you? What did it feel like? Describe any messages or insights that you have received, any qualities you have noted that characterize the Inner Guide.

Exercise: Letter to Your Essential Self

Once you have done this, try this exercise: Write a let­ter addressed to "Dearly Beloved," or whatever name you choose for your Essential Self. Describe your current situ­ation as precisely as you can, the good and the apparently difficult. Ask the most important questions you may have, as clearly as you can; then release all thought, have no precon­ceptions. Develop the habit of a poised mind, like a sailboat on a calm sea waiting for the wind.

Our purpose here is precise. It is to establish direct con­tact with the inner voice, the still, small voice of God express­ing as your Essential Self. Start writing any sentence as the in­ner voice, and see what unfolds. Do not edit, judge, or correct anything. If nothing comes, that is fine. Continue to be still.

If you have been hearing an inner voice and writing in your journal before, this process will be relatively easy. If you have not yet tried this, simply follow the steps with no expectations. Find your own way to connect to your Inner Guide. It may be through other paths than words, like a felt-sense or deep intuition. This much I know for sure: What­ever happens will be helpful. Everyone has within a deeper, wiser, all-knowing self.

Copyright 2012 by Barbara Marx Hubbard.
Reprinted with permission of Hampton Roads Publishing Co.
Dist by Red Wheel Weiser, www.redwheelweiser.com

Article Source

Emergence: The Shift from Ego to Essence
by Barbara Marx Hubbard.

Emergence: The Shift from Ego to Essence by Barbara Marx Hubbard.According to visionary and futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard, we will see a new type of human emerge in the world. She calls this the Universal Human, and it is connected through the heart to the whole of life, evolving consciously and helping to co-create a new kind of spiritual path. Emergence lays out the blueprints for birthing this new kind of human for all who wish to make the transition to the next stage of evolution.

Click here for more info and/or to order this book.

About the Author

Barbara Marx Hubbard, author of: Emergence -- The Shift from Ego to EssenceBarbara Marx Hubbard is an evolutionary educator, speaker, author, and social innovator. She has been called "the voice for conscious evolution of our time" by Deepak Chopra and is the subject of Neale Donald Walsch's new book "The Mother of Invention." Along with Stephen Dinan, she has launched the “Agents of Conscious Evolution”. Visit her website at www.barbaramarxhubbard.com