Author Archives: Ancient Seeker

Quotes by Eric Micha’el Leventhal

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If you want to see, then begin to see how you see.

The stories you believe to be true are the ones your life will become.

Judge not, lest ye miss out on all the fun.

Though we may choose to view them symbolically, dreams are actually no more or less symbolic than everyday waking reality.  When the images and events don’t conform to our view of reality, we call them symbols.  When they do, we call them facts.

To see through the illusion of duality, remember that fear and darkness have no substance in themselves, for they do not indicate the presence of a second universal force, but are only names given to the one Light unperceived.

Change happens for you the moment you want something more than you fear it.

You are here on earth to unearth who on earth you are.

Miracles can only inhabit the reality of our awareness when we surrender our need for the familiar to our desire for the limitless.

Retraining the Mind

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Retraining the Mind

I repeatedly refer to The Infinite Way by Joel Goldsmith.  Whenever I feel that I am not sufficiently progressing towards the spiritual awareness I desire, I find passages that let me know that I am being judgmental and self-condemning.  Enlightenment is not a static condition, a place where you arrive and remain in eternity.  Life in all its forms ebbs and flows, dies and is resurrected.  The nature of existence is change.

Joel Goldsmith states: “Spiritual illumination may be attained by living constantly in the consciousness of the presence of perfection, by the continual translation of the visible picture into the reality.  We are being faced with discordant appearances all through our days and nights, and these must immediately be translated through our understanding of the ‘new tongue,’ the language of Spirit.

Translate the pictures and incidents of daily existence into the new tongue, the language of Spirit, and consciousness will expand until translation occurs without even taking thought.  It becomes a habitual state of consciousness, a constant awareness of Truth.”

Many mornings, I wake up worried about my finances.  How will I pay my bills this month?  It is challenging to keep my mind stayed on Reality and not be distracted by the Illusion of my daily visible pictures.  Utilizing various tools, I analogize a given situation to the suggestion for monitoring alcohol consumption at a party: one glass of water to one glass of wine.  As I worry, I replace anxious thoughts with exercising, reading, listening to inspirational music, writing, meditating, or stating a mantra “This isn’t my Reality” or “As the Principle of Supply in action, it is impossible for me to have any needs or unfulfilled desires.”  The latter is taken from The Abundance Book by John Randolph Price.

Worrying can become so constant that it becomes an unconscious normal state of mind.  Thus, I have to incorporate new habits of thinking throughout the day with every activity.  While driving, when I think my car is overdue for maintenance that I can’t afford, I switch to giving thanks that my car is still running, getting me to and from where I need and desire to go.  As I walk, instead of focusing on all of the undone items on my to-do list, I am thankful that I am able to walk unassisted.  I revel in the beauty that surrounds me.  Thank God for my sight!  When I hear a song, I think of happy memories associated with it.  I change the station if a song is not pleasing to me.

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In Order to Go, You Have to Leave

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The spiritual journey does not consist of arriving at a new destination where a person gains what he did not have, or becomes what he is not.  It consists in the dissipation of one’s own ignorance concerning oneself and life, and the gradual growth of that understanding which begins the spiritual awakening.  The finding of God is a coming to one’s self.  Aldous Huxley

Set peace of mind as your highest goal, and organize your life around it.  Brian Tracy

A negative mind will never give you a positive life.  Ziad K. Abdelnour

The one who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd.  The one who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been before.   Albert Einstein

In order to go, you have to leave.  Grey’s Anatomy, Season 11

We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder.  You always have the choice.  The Dalai Lama

Maturity is learning to walk away from people and situations that threaten your peace of mind, self-respect, values, morals and self-worth.  Tiny Buddha

Want and Decide to Change

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I live in a neighborhood where music, often loudly played, expresses violence, cursing, and misogyny as life’s normality.  It is blasted by young boys on bicycles with attached speaker trailers, cars zooming down or parked on my residential street, or people in their homes, blasting the music for everyone within a two block radius to hear.

Listening to my personal music collection gives me hope and inspiration or makes me dance with glee until I realize that I am no longer the twenty-something who could move my body non-stop until the wee hours of the morning.  Sometimes, positive phrases from my songs’ lyrics pop up without command when I’m in a tough situation.  I wonder what pops up in the minds of those who listen to gangsta rap or other music, games, videos, or other media that promote chaos instead of peace.

Although I cannot prove a connection, I witness behavior and speech that appears to match the music played publicly in my neighborhood.  The other day, I was pulling weeds from my yard.  A man walked by and told me that I was working too hard.  He suggested that I just “set fire to it.”

A death on the block caused the entire street to be completely taken over for a couple of weeks by people coming to pay their respects.  They blocked driveways, double parked, opened car trunks that became open bars.  They ate, drank, smoked, and openly sold or exchanged drugs.  Kids ran and played like they were at a county fair, picking up bottles of alcohol like toys, using the contents to water lawns that weren’t theirs.  Trash was left in the street and on private property.  The aforementioned loud music was played until well after dark, when the police finally showed up to shut the partying down.

None of this is seen as abnormal or disrespectful.  Residents’ rights or comfort are not considered.  Requests to move cars and pick up trash and bottles are met with hostility.  I think the music affirms and supports a generational culture of thinking and behavior that feeds dysfunction, limitation, crime, and mental, physical, emotional, and social dis-ease.  This is how some people live.  This is how they like to live and how they are comfortable living.  And all of the laws and government programs trying to address racism, income and other inequality, health care, crime, and whoever’s life matters will have a short-term impact until whatever is going on inside of people is transformed, especially as regards the children.

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Plural Realities

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Maybe each human being lives in a unique world, a private world different from those inhabited and experienced by all other humans. . . If reality differs from person to person, can we speak of reality singular, or shouldn’t we really be talking about plural realities?  And if there are plural realities, are some more true (more real) than others?  What about the world of a schizophrenic?  Maybe it’s as real as our world.  Maybe we cannot say that we are in touch with reality and he is not, but should instead say, His reality is so different from ours that he can’t explain his to us, and we can’t explain ours to him.  The problem, then, is that if subjective worlds are experienced too differently, there occurs a breakdown in communication . . . and there is the real illness.   Philip K. Dick

Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion.  Life is like a train of moods like a string of beads and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue.  Ralph Waldo Emerson

All problems are illusions of the mind.   Eckhart Tolle

You’re a dream.  Like everything else.  Kelly Creagh

How often, you wonder, has the direction of your life been shaped by misunderstandings?  How many opportunities have you been denied – or, for that matter, awarded – because someone failed to see you properly?  How many friends have you lost, how many have you gained, because they glimpsed some element of your personality that shone through for only an instant, and in circumstances you could never reproduce?  An illusion of water shimmering at the far bend of a highway.   Kevin Brockmeier

There is an old illusion.  It is called good and evil.  Friedrich Nietzsche

Experiencing Illusion

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My meditation this morning focused on seeing light everywhere.  I was trying to reconcile this statement with my not wanting to be around negative people.  Why do I not see their light?  Why can I not disregard what I see and hear?  Why is my light not bright enough to dispel darkness?  I decided that I’m just not “there” yet.

Towards the end of my meditation, I perceived that negativity is an illusion.  It seems real.  However, as I grow and begin to reflect upon my inner self that is externally expressing, the illusions begin to disappear.  My ego mind may decide not to be around someone or to eat harmful substances.  It may want to be around light or peace or joy or to be more happy and less angry.

In reality, I am coming into awareness of and in accordance with my True Self.  All else – judgment, categorizing perception – is fading away.  I exist.  I observe.  I am beginning to realize that I am not hurting anyone, nor are they hurting me.  Whatever is going on is a perception formulated through the prism of my mind and that of another.  Each and every one of us exists within our own personal reality, which is within a larger Reality.  We are seeing and experiencing what we are ready and able to see and experience.

My feeling that I am around negativity is actually an attachment to what is not real at this point.  It is me not yet being able to express my truest Self, my authentic Self and, therefore, remaining in darkness because my material mind says that I must be attached to my loved ones, my job, my house, my whatever, instead of simply existing in the Essence that expresses itself as form and substance, but is itself not.

All that I hold dear – abundance, health, security, love – is already me, is already available at all times to me.  It does not come and go or diminish or increase.  Therefore, I don’t need to hold onto what or who I think will give these to me.  I don’t need to believe that I am the provider of these to others.  They have already what they hold dear.  If others express anger towards me because of what they perceive that I am not giving to them, I don’t need to feel guilty or match their emotion. I need simply to become aware that they are experiencing an illusion.  They are not aware of the infinity that is instantly and constantly available to them and so they must project that feeling of lack outward.

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True Nature or Preconceived Notion

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The way of the Creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the Great Harmony.  This is what furthers and what perseveres.   Alexander Pope

True refuge is that which allows us to be at home, at peace, to discover true happiness.  The only thing that can give us true refuge is the awareness and love that is intrinsic to who we are.  Ultimately, it’s our own true nature.   Tara Brach

The physical ego, the active consciousness in man, should uplift its body-identified self into unity with the soul, its true nature; it should not allow itself to remain mired in the lowly delusive strata of the senses and material entanglement.  Paramahansa Yogananda

The true nature of soul is right knowledge, right faith, and right conduct.  The soul, so long as it is subject to transmigration, is undergoing evolution and involution.  Virchand Gandhi

Preconceived notions are the locks on the door to wisdom.  Mary Browne

A lot of preconceived notions that I had about fame and status and money and joy and pain, and all of these things that I thought I knew, I didn’t.  Alanis Morissette

Awareness of Your True Passion

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For a long time, my life felt like I was in the movie Groundhog’s Day, where a man finds himself living the same day over and over again.  I felt like I was in a forest trying to get out and kept ending up at the same tree from which I started.  I continuously kept going round and round in a circle until I decided to change me.  I began to focus on changing my perceptions and behavior instead of blaming “them” and reflecting on how “they” should be.  I began the life-long process of refining and molding myself into what I wanted to see in others and in my life.

More frequently, I recognize how I can better speak and react.  After tense interactions, I ask myself, “Were my words and actions loving and compassionate in the face of unfairness and harshness?  Did I maintain composure and a steadfastness of being centered in my internal peace and joy?  Am I even aware of and, therefore, capable of expressing my internal peace and joy?”  Often, the answer is still no; but, I am increasing my self awareness.  At least I have a clue as to what I need to work on.  I’m not yet out of the forest, but I haven’t seen that tree in awhile.

I now re-define “obstacles” and “failures” as opportunities to evolve.  In athletic pursuits, we know that, to become more skillful, we must practice consistently and work on techniques.  Developing our inner selves takes the same commitment and perseverance.  I commit myself to that strategy.

You may find that your perceived setbacks were actually building blocks that form the foundation of a life that is more in line with your nature than your notions.

For example, sometimes what you believe to be your passion may not manifest according to your exact vision.  If you change your perspective and become open and receptive to what is currently unknown, you could find yourself moving with greater speed and clarity towards your destiny.

I want to be a successful writer.  However, as I review my primary activities past and present, I see that that I have repeatedly pursued opportunities to increase my knowledge of the Essence of Life.  I obtained a masters degree in theology, not a masters in fine arts with an emphasis in writing.  I continue to study religions and various Eastern philosophies.  I practice yoga.  I attend workshops and seminars on opening oneself to Universal Energy.  Today, I recognize that my writing is not my primary goal.  It is one expression of my journey on the Path towards knowing the Infinity of my Self.

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Center Your Attention

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Interest. Here is the key to the whole thing.  If and when you are truly interested in what you are doing, or are about to do, then you will center your attention on it with little or no effort, and almost irrespective of the attendant conditions.   Ralph Alfred Habas

People will seek the ends of the galaxy to avoid that which they need most.   Criss Jami

The age in which we live, this non-stop distraction, is making it more impossible for the young generation to ever have the curiosity or discipline . . . because you need to be alone to find out anything.  Vivienne Westwood

The saints, too, had wandering minds.  The saints, too, had constantly to recall their constantly wandering mind-child home.  They became saints because they continued to go after the little wanderer, like the Good Shepherd.   Peter Kreeft

I have wandered all my life, and I have also traveled; the difference between the two being this, that we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.  Hilaire Belloc

Anything that we do to make ourselves feel worthy and safe is a flight from the pain of powerlessness.  Every pursuit of external power – every attempt to change the world or a person in order to make yourself feel valuable and safe – is a distraction from the pain of powerlessness.   Gary Zukav

Be Aware of Distractions

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In the process of moving toward your passion, be aware of distractions, which can be a way of dealing with fear.

Fear of success is usually not conscious.  Obviously, most of us want to be successful.  However, our minds and bodies respond to fear, even that of which we are not consciously aware.  Therefore, we must become aware of obstacles that are self-imposed.

One subconscious fear may be that your life will change if you are successful.  Even though you want to be more, you know the characteristics and boundaries of where you are.  The unknown is usually feared.  Most of us do not want to go out of our comfort zones, even as we clearly and emphatically don’t want to be there and would not call “there” comfortable.  But if you are not content where you are and you are not actively taking steps to change your situation, then you have to examine why.

Societal norms don’t encourage us to take the time to reflect and to really look at ourselves and our lives.  We don’t listen to our inner voices anymore.  We don’t respond to our gut feelings; therefore, our guts stop guiding us.  They stop warning us when we are going astray.  Fear can keep you from moving forward into uncertainty.  It will keep you right where you are and prevent you from making a first step or that next step.  Right now, you may have enough to survive.  You tell yourself that you’ll wait until you have a safety net to take that leap of faith towards your destiny.

We rationalize our acceptance of the status quo: “I am not stressed. I’m fine.  Everything is fine.”  “Doctors say two drinks per day are ok.”  “I need this job.  I have loans, a mortgage, bills, tuition, my car, shopping, my hair, nails, the kids’ soccer games.”  “I know I need to lose weight, but I’m too busy to exercise or cook healthy foods.”  “My job requires me to travel a lot.  I have to eat out all of the time.”  “I don’t have time for relationships/ kids / vacations.”  “When I retire, when I quit this job, when the kids are out of the house, when I don’t have to take care of my parents, when the easier future comes, then I’ll . . .”

You may take the steps toward your passion, but discover that certain friends and associates want to use your motivating energy to support their needs and desires.  Because you like the company of friends and family and you want to help and be a good example, you change your schedule, your consistency, and your style to adjust to theirs.  You don’t feel comfortable saying no or “I’ll address that concern tomorrow or next week when I have time.”  The next thing you know, you’re not progressing.  You diverge from your planned routine.  You lose your momentum and your direction.

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