InnerSelf

Part of letting go into the flow of life lies in realizing that you have never really been in control of your life, at least not from the perspective of the conscious mind. You simply have been mak­ing choices based on a very limited scope of awareness dictated by perception and conditioning.

Despite our habits of judgment, there comes a moment when we realize we are all doing our best here, even when it appears to be our worst. However, making choices is where your true power lies. Thus, it is crucial that we know what our options are.

Making the "Right Choice"

The ego usually speaks up first, but if we stop and think — “I see where this decision is going. I’ve been there and done that, and frankly don’t want to choose that again” — we become open to an answer from a deeper part of ourselves, the part that remembers forever.

There is great power in choosing to say “no” to the ego, even when you don’t know what the alternatives are just yet. Preferring to do nothing rather than the wrong thing is choosing the right thing.

Stress Exists Because I Insist!

Giving up the illusion of control is one of the greatest favors you can do for yourself. We say “Stress exists because I insist!” Our insistence is usually that “my” plan, “my” assumptions, opinions, and perceptions, my “shoulds” must happen, or I fear I may lose control and cease to exist as I imagine myself to be. This is the ego, afraid of its own inevitable demise.

Try turning all your “shoulds” into “coulds.” We all have pref­erences for how we would like things to be or turn out. But at the same time, stay flexible. “Want what life wants,” as my first guru, Vernon Howard, said (The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power).

Always leave the door open for whatever may happen. Don’t limit yourself to patterns of the past. That is all perception and preference are — an attempt by the ego to keep the past and itself alive.

True Prayer Meditation: Releasing The Future from Stress-Driven Perspectives

Here is an exercise that helps me release the future from the prison bars of my perception. While in meditation, I see the issue at hand on an imaginary altar. I offer the altar with my concern on it to God, whom I imagine in the form of a beautiful Light. It is now out of my hands.

I still may go back and approach the issue as I would have anyway, but now the pressure is off me. I have alerted the Creator that I am open to other options. I am okay with a miracle here!

This exercise is called “true prayer” and is further described in Gary Renard’s wonderful book, The Disappearance of the Uni­verse.

This article was excerpted with permission from the book:

Navigating the Collapse of Time: A Peaceful Path Through the End of Illusions
by David Ian Cowan.

Reprinted with permission from Red Wheel/Weiser LLC. ©2011. Navigating the Collapse of Time by David Ian Cowan is available wherever books are sold or directly from the publisher at 1-800-423-7087 or www.redwheelweiser.com.

Click here for more info and/or to order Navigating the Collapse of Time on Amazon.

About the Author

Dave Cowan is a Licensed Spiritual Health Coach. He has 'morphed' from being a professional musician, counselor, alternative health practitioner, and biofeedback trainer into an author of and speaker on modern Spirituality. He and his wife Erina offer a Licensing program for Spiritual Healers and a Certification program in Spiritual Dowsing. Visit their website www.bluesunenergetics.net for more information.