Golden Ball Energy Stance

The classic movie Lost Horizon shows this journey of awakening to a higher level of consciousness and the subsequent drive to seek it no matter what. Ronald Coleman plays the hero, Robert Conway, who survives a plane crash in the Himalayas and ends up in a beautiful valley called Shangri-La (a state of timelessness and unconditional lovingness that calibrates at about 600). When Conway returns to his ordinary life in England (a life that calibrates around 200), he experiences success, but he cannot find any satisfaction compared to that deep peace he experienced in Shangri-La. This creates the desire to return to that state of inner consciousness at any cost. Here you are, barely half-baked and tender as a pudding, in the first stages of discovering your true self, and along comes the ego demanding to know how in the world this measly mush of new selfhood is going to withstand the latest worst-case scenario it has just dreamed up. You have barely enrolled in the full-credit course of self-development, and the ego has hightailed it to your side to put you to the final test. If this is really the right path for you, the ego will say, then you surely must have all the skills right now. And then it will proceed to present the hardest, most challenging, and stickiest questions any human being has ever faced, as though to mock your resolve with your own inexperience. All you have to say is: It is not time to take my final exam yet. There is not one of us who would not fail the ego's final exam question if we agreed to take it at the wrong time. It tempts our conceit with its urgency, telling us that if we really had the potential, we would be able to give the right answer. But do not even attempt to answer the ego on this one. Final exams do not belong at the beginning of any course, when there is not yet any mastery there to test. You have time to develop the mastery. You still have the knowledge in that situation-you've just lost certain pieces of the memory. The old you get, the more likely you are to lose episodes more often or begin to forget the data itself. Be ready to improve your memory. You're going to need to work up a sweat then. Science has shown that brain cells are malleable, which means that neutrons can be formed, and strong connections can be created at any age. So, if you are thirty or eighty, it is still possible to boost your memory.

The trick is to continue to exercise it. Much like working your body with a muscle, your brain also needs to be worked out. How will this be done? With workouts. He risks his life to find the portal by which he can return to Shangri-La (which the movie depicts as a place, but which we know is actually within consciousness itself). This is why the alcoholic drinks, the addict takes drugs, or any of us indulge in the other ways we have found to feel better. We are trying to shift our level of consciousness from low to high. When we are paralyzed by Fear (cal. In doing whatever we can to get high, we are simply trying to find the portal to that inner Shangri-La. THE TRUTH ABOUT ADDICTION When we are truthful about what we want to experience, what is it? It is not the substance or anything external to us. Those are only the mechanisms that temporarily block the lower emotions and allow us to experience our own innate Higher Self, which is what we are really after. In fact, most people go through the day looking for pleasure, or at least some way to alter their inner state of consciousness. Don't let the ego rush you into a feeling of failure. Marcie's Setback After Marcie's initial elation over beginning her house renovation project, she was hit with her ego's final exam whammy several months later. At that point I ran into Marcie and asked her how the house project was going. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she told me she felt totally stuck and hopeless about ever getting out from under her family's control. Marcie explained that she had gotten her dad to agree to underwrite her project as an investment, with the result that she now felt dependent on him for every new bill that came up.

It killed her to have to go back to him over and over for the cash to do the next step. Before she could act on the obvious solution of asking her father for a lump sum deposit, her ego got the jump on her. Obviously you have failed, sneered her ego, what self-respecting contractor goes to daddy for every nickel? If you were really cut out for this, you'd be able to do it all without any help. They will help reinforce ties while strengthening the short-term and long-term memory. The more you use your brain, the easier it is to remember details. That is why so many physicians and scientists recommend doing psychological exercises. Try doing a regular crossword, reading the morning paper, doing a brainteaser, learning a new language, or playing a musical instrument to tackle age-induced memory loss. All this stuff will make an immense difference to your brain. In fact, it has been found that it can add four years to your overall brain health by simply learning more than one language. The more, the more you know! For senior citizens, it is no wonder brain gyms are popping up. To help improve memory, these facilities provide mental drills and other brain games. Your brain isn't the only one that needs a good workout. Drugs and alcohol are a quick fix, for in seconds we can be in a state of mellow and bliss. In the beginning, it works. If that were not true, no one would do it. But the relief is only for a moment or so. We operate on memory, so it takes a while to realize it is not working. But, over time, because it is an artificially induced experience of happiness, it has created an equal and opposite indebtedness.

The universe knows when it has been cheated. The pain or discomfort or restlessness was merely postponed, not resolved. The anxiety or grief or resentment just got put away for a moment, to be reckoned with later. Using artificial means to ascend the Map of Consciousness does not work. In effect, her ego was labeling the situation as her final exam, the make-or-break moment in her life. If she did not do this one according to the article, she was about to get an F. Even though Marcie had gotten caught up in the feeling that she was failing, she really wasn't. Looking at her situation from the outside, charting her movement along the track, anyone could see how far she actually had come. Her instinctive choice to include her father had been a perfect next-step. She was solving her central dilemma: how can I be my true self and still keep my ties to my family? By asking for her father's support in the pursuit of her authentic dream, she was using her old life in service of the new. She was building solidly on her past to bring about a new future. Marcie was also tacitly reassuring her family that she was not rejecting them and that she still valued their help. When Marcie's dad agreed, whether he knew it or not, he was giving her his blessing and literally betting on his daughter's potential. Breaking a sweat has also been related to better memory in the old fashioned way. Studies have shown that consistently exercising will add up to five years to your memory. This means five years of additional freedom. How is this happening? All have to do with elevated blood flow to the brain. The links between certain brain pathways can be enhanced by this.

Try weight lifting or going for a fast walk to reap the benefits of working out. It's time for your memory to improve. You are able to do exactly that by incorporating mental and physical activity. Not only does it keep your body safe, but it also keeps your brain strong and your mind sharp, too. We transcend the lower levels by having the courage to face them and work through them, and then our energy field becomes a carrier wave for others longing to break free. Here is the crucial point: never be ashamed of seeking that higher state of consciousness, and never be ashamed of the various methods used in trying to experience it. The goal that we are seeking through drugs and alcohol is nothing to be ashamed of. The entire spiritual world is seeking that higher state of consciousness. It is the greatest aspiration we are capable of--to experience the Higher Self and highest levels of consciousness--and according to certain religions, it takes numerous lifetimes even to reach that desire, which is a spiritual awakening to go beyond the material world. Addiction is a path of spiritual awakening. For other people it happens through another kind of powerlessness--losing a child or other loved one, a terminal diagnosis, being plunged into the depths of despair. The Higher Self is clever and will throw us over the precise cliff needed to awaken us. Out of sheer hopelessness, we come to surrender, and out of surrender comes humility and we go right back to the high state we thought we had lost forever, only now without the drug, so it is more stable and truly liberating. Because the ego has weakened, when we sit down to meditate or pray, and (whether an atheist or not, makes no difference) we ask to reach something higher, it happens. What's the Experience You Want to Have Every Day? This is the most helpful question you can ask yourself to clarify your true wishes. It is what we were making Marcie answer in the group that evening. It's the one question that ensures you will not settle for something you really don't love. If you do not want to do something every day, then a lifetime of it won't do, will it? If Marcie could drive around in a big new Ford Explorer, with her dog, dressed in casual clothes, and tell people what to do, she would be in heaven.