17 APR 2022 · Right Action... Wrong Place Bart: "They ruined my childhood!: Lisa: "Your childhood is currently happening That humorous title sums up our current clumsy means of dealing with human suffering. No one can deny the fact of human misery. But wouldn't you think, that after all this time, we might have a clue as to how to alleviate it? For literally thousands of years we have been scratching our collectives nose when it is our universal butt that is itching. There can be no relief to the annoying itch until we scratch in the right place. I mean when you're cold you don't put a sweater on the coffee pot. You put it on you. Needless to say, this isn't the result of a lack of sincerity or persistence. It is simply our ignorance as to the source of our discomfort. We have completely mistaken the cause and, as an inevitable result, have come up with consistently failed solutions. In every field of human activity we have learned to assess our results and alter course appropriately. Yet, in this endeavor to be free of suffering we don't scrutinize our most fundamental assumptions about its cause and cure. We seem to be stuck in the idea that somehow human suffering arises from conditions and therefore we engage relentlessly in the activity of trying to change conditions. We change partners We change jobs We change locations We change clothes We change leaders We change political systems We change economic systems We change religions We change attitudes We even rearrange the furniture Yet the suffering remains. And it will continue to. Why? Let me ask this. What do all of those changes have in common? They all are an attempt to change external conditions in the hopes of alleviating the experience of suffering, discontent, discomfort. We keep scratching in the same place, despite the failure to achieve relief. 2500 years ago Buddha suggested a path to the end of suffering. The first step in that path was simply "Right views." In other words, seeing things as they actually are. We can infer from that, that the first cause of suffering would be wrong views. Needless to say, trying to alleviate suffering while being steeped in wrong views of how suffering actually comes to be, would definitely be scratching your nose when your butt itches. The incredible profundity of non-dual self-inquiry is that its whole thrust is to question those assumptions that have led to human suffering. Join us for the next episode of "OM School Live" every Tuesday at 12 noon eastern time. at http://youtube.com/gpwalsh or in the private facebook group https://facebook.com/groups/gpwalsh

15 APR 2022 · “I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” – Albert Einstein World War III does not loom in the future. We are in it right now and have been for a while. Wars are a result not a cause. The actual armed conflict is the last step in a long process. We tend to think only of the gunfire and bombs as the war but the war begins long before the first shot sounds. No war or battle can take place without a storyline to support it. In other words, the mind must be captured, influenced, convinced and thus moved to action. So the real war is always for the mind. In our modern time with mass communication, this influence has been kicked into high gear. We are constantly bombarded with memes, images, slogans, sound bites and talking heads in an attempt to influence us into supporting their position. Although this means of influence has always been known and practiced by those in a position of influence, there is something different about what is happening now. For the first time ever this is global, it reaches everywhere and almost every moment of every day there is an attempt to influence our minds. Actually that word influence is too weak. It is an attempt to control it. But I see something else at work, something unprecedented. These attempts at control are only effective when the one being controlled is unaware of it. Once awareness is present, it completely falls apart. The idea or story that someone wants to instill in you must be believed by you in order to have any power or activity. If you don't believe it it is dead in the water. And so these self-serving storylines are always presented as the truth. But they are not. Beliefs need to be believed. Truth is true whether anyone believes it or not. True is self-sustaining, self-existent, self-luminous and incorruptible. Humanity as a whole is seeking truth, not just another set of beliefs. Which is why I call this World War III. There is a global upheaval of the mind happening. The old paradigm has long ago betrayed its falsity. The old way of human organization has proven to be wholly inadequate, a fact made stunningly apparent in the dismal response to the pandemic and the blatant profiteering where there should have been selfless cooperation. But I have to put forth a warning. In this time of enormous ambiguity, propaganda, divisiveness and polarization it is easy to jump to a new position. Once you realize that you have been deceived there is a tendency to grab on to a new position that is simply the opposite of the one abandoned. This knee jerk reaction gives rise to what are called conspiracy theories which are, in many cases, just as deluded and dangerous as the falsity they are a reaction to. We can go beyond all this. We don't seek a better story, we seek the truth and the truth is not a story. It is not just a different belief, even if it is an improved belief. Let me propose a standard by which all human interaction, behavior, organization and relationship should be informed and it is the only one that will make WWIII the last war ever. That standard is Love! We are not at war with people. There is a pervasive belief system that needs to be exposed as a belief. But that exposure must happen within each of us. Can we drop our position and open to something beyond positions? Can we embody that universal love? Can we become conscientious about our choices? Can we recognize our total interconnection, that suffering, anywhere in the world, is my suffering? Can we transcend the modern universal narcissism we have all succumbed to? Can we stop with the selfies and move beyond "I" to "We"? If every act we engage in is devoted to the benefit of all, war will end, poverty will end, the destruction of the planet will end, profiteering will end, ignorance will end, consumerism will end, discontent will end, fear will end. The battle for the mind will come to a close, the victory handed to Love and we will finally know peace on earth. Join us for the next episode of "OM School Live" every Tuesday at 12 noon eastern time. at http://youtube.com/gpwalsh or in the private facebook group https://facebook.com/groups/gpwalsh

13 APR 2022 · Resolving the Conflict Between Love & Attachment “This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.” ― Rumi In our modern approach to the human necessity of relationship we often try to draw a hard line. We insist that love and attachment are opposites and you have to let go of one in order to experience the other. Ah, life is not so simple. Attachment is a term that seems to have nothing but negative connotations. Perhaps we should use this word instead... BONDING. The positive side of what we call attachment is bonding. If a child does not bond with its mother it will struggle with emotional difficulties its entire life. Attempting to compensate for the absence of this essential human need results in all of the psychological distortions and even physical ailments we experience throughout life. It will also means that future relationships will be filled with the attachments in the sense we now commonly use it. So the real issue we must look at is not attachment, but a lack of genuine bonding. There is an enormous gift that comes with being a human being. It is a gift that, as far as we know, no other critter on the planet possesses. It is the capacity for introspection and compassionate discrimination. Unlike our non-human brothers and sisters, we can recognize conditioning and conditioning. In this recognition we can bring to ourselves the quality of love, self-acceptance and appreciation that was lacking in those formative years. In other words, we can create an inner environment where a miracle takes place. We SELF BOND. This bonding is not one thing bonding to another. It is the bonding with our Original Innocence. You see, the process of healthy bonding with parents is actually creating the inner environment where we are comfortable in our own skin. We feel a sense of completeness, of resourcefulness. The loving acceptance of parents creates a loving acceptance of ourselves. This is the natural bonding that, in adulthood, expresses itself in the healthy bonding in relationships and minimizes, even eliminates the potential for unhealthy attachments, that is relationships with strings attached. If a relationship, of any kind, is an attempt to compensate for something very essential missing from you, it will inevitably have strings attached. It can't help it. The need we have to this bonding with ourselves is to critical it simply must be either fulfilled or compensated for. When this inner environment of self-acceptance is present there is no need for the nervous system to create the layers of self-protection that make up our self-defeating conditioning. Instead, there is more direct access to your true nature. That means you really do know what you need and want. Then, inevitably, you will be finding experiences and relationships that express your wholeness, instead of finding experiences to try to compensate for its absence. You will be bonding and not attaching. There will be no strings. The good news is that this Original Innocence is always present. Because it is what you are It can never be destroyed. it can only be obscured by the nervous system's primary mandate to keep you alive. And everything I teach is a path back to that Innocence, sometimes through some difficult inner spaces, but always arriving at the place where this is nothing but light and love. Then even the word bonding falls away, since there is no need to bond with what you already are. Bonding dissolves into Oneness and in that Oneness there are no strings, no attachments. There is only Love. Join us for the next episode of "OM School Live" every Tuesday at 12 noon eastern time. at http://youtube.com/gpwalsh or in the private facebook group https://facebook.com/groups/gpwalsh

25 MAR 2022 · "And suddenly you realize: you are in every dot of the universe vanishing and arising.” - Amit Ray Desire is one of those hopelessly ambiguous things that gets either denounced as the cause of suffering or held to be the ultimate goal. We are either monks or hedonists. Neither is accurate! Let's take a step back and look at this inevitable and natural function of the human system. Without desire life is impossible. In its essence it is the motivation of life itself. What is the very best way for life to guarantee something happens or you do something? Make you want to. Job done. This works perfectly when the creature is completely at the behest of nature and natural instincts. But it is a completely different matter when consciousness matures to the point where it is participating in the process; judging it, attempting to control it, wanting it to be different than it is and experiencing cultural biases toward desires that, prior to this would have just be pure innocence. Culture or society, in its attempt to usurp nature and exercise its own control, has characterized the most natural of human motivations in a dark light. It has done so, so successfully that we are ourselves the enforcer of these rules. The end result being, we have become disconnected with our soul, which is simply a word for your true nature, or what I call Original Innocence. The other thing that results is that our capacity to discern what is natural and what is culturally imposed gets blurred. We can't tell anymore and so we do evil in the name of good and act in ways that can only be labeled inhuman. The way back to that Original Innocence and our capacity to discern between natural and unnatural desires starts with a rather simple process. We have to allow both, feel both, experience both and let our capacity to discern the difference mature and grow. But when attempt to do that we find within us a great deal of resistance. All the judgement, criticism and negative characterizations come to the surface. We find it hard to feel these desires. We find it hard to dream our heart's dream. We find ourselves with a great deal of inner discomfort and conflict. So I offer the simplest advice. Simple to hear but not so simple to do. Give desire equal time and feel both the desire and the resistance to it. When you do something strange happens. The conditioned nervous system, being a totally adaptive mechanism, once it recognizes that the desire can no longer be suppressed will begin to adapt to the new environment. It will, in fact, begin to reconcile the the dissonance. It will look for balance. The more time you give desire, without trying to force it, the more that environment is transformed. Remember, you can't assume that every desire that arises is natural to you. So you have to let all of it be sorted out. Eventually, you will begin to discern between the unnatural or egoic, programmed desires and the ones that are as natural to you as breathing. Those desires may come to pass at that point. They may not but that is not the reward. The reward for perseverance here is the end of inner conflict. And the other name for that is peace. Inner Peace is the reward. Join us for the next episode of "OM School Live" every Tuesday at 12 noon eastern time. at http://youtube.com/gpwalsh or in the private facebook group https://facebook.com/groups/gpwalsh

23 MAR 2022 · "Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love, It humbles my heart, For You are everywhere." - Poem from the film, The Shape of Water One of the difficulties of being a spiritual teacher is I can talk about what is true directly. I can't point to something and say there it is. Lacking this, I am forced into the use of similes, metaphors, stories, inferences, parables. One such metaphor I like to use is the shape of water. Water is an amazing substance. If you think about it for just a little bit you find it to be totally mysterious. It sustains and is a necessity for all life. yet it is transparent It is easily seen through yet it bends light It is soft and light to the touch, yet it can carve a canyon in solid granite It takes the shape of whatever container is is put in and yet it has no shape of its own And so it serves as a perfect metaphor for consciousness. You can see it it yet through it you see everything else. Without it you simply don't exist It perceives all light and even the subtlest of substances, space itself It is undetectable to the senses yet there is nothing without it It too takes the shape of whatever environment it finds itself in and, in the most mysterious of transformations, stays in that shape, even when the environment has changed. This is the nature of the conditioning that we all struggle with. All the emotional and psychological problems, limitations, struggles have all a risen from consciousness, temporarily confined in a particular container and then forgetting that is as free as water. Join us for the next episode of "OM School Live" every Tuesday at 12 noon eastern time. at http://youtube.com/gpwalsh or in the private facebook group https://facebook.com/groups/gpwalsh

8 MAR 2022 · "Adam, where art thou?" - God Shortly after the fall from grace the all-seeing God went looking for Adam and Eve. Obviously not on his omniscience game that day he called out "Adam, where art thou?" Where indeed. Adam responded that he was hiding. When the all-knowing asked him "Why?" the recalcitrant, literally born yesterday human responded, "I was ashamed." For centuries now adults and children alike have been tormented by the idea that there is a very harsh and judgmental super being who not only records all your deeds for later prosecution, he even records everything you think. The ultimate thought police. As a spiritual teacher I can actually agree with that whole litany: -He does know every deed -He does know every thought, emotion, sensation, impulse and desire and -He does judge them, and almost always does so harshly and without mercy How is this possible? How can this being know absolutely everything you do, think or want and prepare the most horrible punishment for your transgressions? Because She is You! She (or he if you prefer) is a deep disowned part of yourself; your inherent divinity, your mystery, your magnificence, your Original Innocence. In other words God is the disowned voice of your very soul. This voice had been disowned and powerfully so. Disowning simply means it cannot be acknowledged. And this taboo against its acknowledgment is the foundation of western religions (the Abrahamic tradition) and indeed all of western culture. The consequence of this institutionalized, horrific injustice is that we take upon ourselves the fault, the guilt, the shame, the blame for the very worst of human behavior. In the meantime, the very best, that which wish we could be but which we no longer have access to, we project outwards on others. And the ultimate form this projection takes is the idea of God. God represents the ultimate, the best, the unattainable, everything we would regard as divine. He/She also represents the ultimate rule maker and rule keeper. enforcer, the punisher, the strict enforcer of all laws. Law that were imposed on us by the way. We had no say in their selection. But every quality we attribute to this super being is nothing other than a projection of your own self. God is your disowned Soul. All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you." - Joseph Campbell All the gods and goddesses, all the angels and demons, all the heroes and villains, THEY ARE ALL YOU! That is why God seems to know everything about you. That is because she does. She IS you! But, in our ignorance, we have projected it all on an imaginary super being. And we did this simply because we have never been allowed to accept our own innate divinity. And yes, that divinity includes our innate power. Yet the fact remains that all those qualities, which have been denied and projected outward, are your forever qualities. They are your true nature. So what happened? How did our actual, innocent nature get so demonized? How did the God within become the wrathful God without and to such a degree that to even question it is the most severe blasphemy? Early in our lives we learned to keep so much of ourselves hidden. I have spoken and written extensively about this so I will only summarize here. This sad but necessary state of affairs is a normal part of the process of growing up. The bottom line is, you were not acceptable to your "Tribe," your caregivers and the culture in which they operated and so you confronted the most horrific existential crisis... it was unacceptable and thus dangerous to simply be yourself. This was the condition of childhood that caused us to send big parts of ourselves to the basement of disowned selves, simply to survive. Not only did we disown the very best parts of us (the God within) we created a fictitious version of ourselves (the ego) to present to the Tribe exactly what it wanted to see. In so doing we guaranteed our basic needs would get met and we would survived. It also meant we lost our soul. All the inner forces that kept us afraid and hiding away the real self became the projected God of this world. Yahweh, the enforcer of rules and merciless dispenser of judgement and punishment was the perfect metaphor for this horror. Universally experienced it became the dominant religious view although mercifully, the influence of this imaginary, tribal super being is finally waning. The Influence of the Yahweh idea can wane because it is a fraud, a fiction, an infantile projection of humanity in its superstitious and fearful infancy. But the true God/Goddess, the one that does live within you and IS you, is immortal. That can be obscured but it cannot be killed or done away with. The real God, the REAL YOU, is still alive and well. It has not been lost. It has only been disowned and at the root of that true self denying effort is ignorance. The false self (or ego) gets created over time and is believed to be the true self; limited, frail, mortal and filled with fear and lack. This becomes our self-image. It is who we think we are. The power of the mind is such that, whatever is believed is literally experienced as a lived reality. Thus all the circumstances of our lives appear to confirm that fundamental mistake. As a result we unconsciously and relentlessly reject who we really are. We keep the disowned god in the basement. This is where genuine spirituality enters the picture. Self-inquiry begins to question these long held, unscrutinized assumptions and asks: -What is really me and what is what I have been conditioned to believe? -Are these assumptions true? -Is this image I hold of myself who I truly am? -Who was I before all this conditioning happened? -Who would I be if I saw myself differently? -Is this identity nothing but conditioned patterns? -Is it possible that I am way more than I believe? -Is there a path to realizing that? The mere asking of these question, even before there is a concrete answer, is an awakening, an opening, a shift in perception. Mind you, the path back to the real you is not an easy one. You are so well practiced at being who you are not that your entire nervous system is embodying that false assumption every moment of everyday. Not only that, but when you begin to challenge this fiction, there will be the inevitable resistance that comes when you try to change any habit of behavior. And this is mother of all habits of behavior. But, the reward is beyond description. Everything you have ever wanted to be, every quality you have ever wanted to possess, every fear, lack and doubt you have ever wanted to be free of, are all yours, with the realization of the real you, the god/goddess within. That disowned voice, projected outward on a wrathful, merciless super being, turns out to be your voice. And your true voice turns out to be infinitely benevolent, forgiving, gentle, happy and eternally free. Join GP Walsh and host/producer Lisa Berry for the next episode of "The Flow" every Tuesday at 12 noon eastern time. at http://youtube.com/gpwalsh or in the private facebook group https://facebook.com/groups/gpwalsh.

8 FEB 2022 · "No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks - Mary Wallstonecraft This have been a question that has perplexed human beings as long as evil has existed. And in fact, evil is a relatively recent invention. When we use the word evil, it is burdened by our current sense of morality. This is good so this is evil. We hold to these "absolutes" even though our rules about them change according to circumstance. Case in point: Murder is bad... unless you are protecting your property, fighting "bad" people, promoting democracy or taking stuff you really need Stealing is bad... unless it is from people who we don't think are good or entitled to their possessions and taking stuff we really need Lying is bad... unless you are concealing the truth or justifying all the previous rules Lust is bad... unless it is in marriage or a man sowing his wild oats before settling down You are bad... unless you are following all these rules unquestioningly and don't think for yourself For all its claims to the contrary, morality is relativistic and, in our childishness we argue incessantly over side is objectively "true." If we can't come to an agreement, we go to war. And notice that it always seems to be the right side that wins History is always revisionist.. Let me. put a completely different spin on it, one that is far more practical and we don't have to invent angry super beings to enforce it. The problem of evil is really the problem of SUFFERING. Anything we do that creates unnecessary and avoidable suffering is evil. As Ms. Wallstonecraft points out in the opening quote, we mistake some behavior as being beneficial to us (namely bringing happiness) but it brings exactly the opposite. So Buddha was right al along. At the root of all human suffering (aka evil) is ignorance. And as another sage put it, "Father forgive them they don't know what the hell they're doing." So if we are ever to eradicate evil and its compounding consequences from the world, we must make a momentous discovery. Where does happiness truly lie? Answering that question is the heart and soul of genuine spirituality. To know where lasting happiness, lives and thus reap its inevitable fruits of peace, community, individual self-expression and universal harmony, we must know who we are. Like a lion in a cage or a whale in a swimming pool, I cannot be living a life that does not fit and be happy. And so, like a broken record (remember those?) I say the same thing over and over in every possible way that I can. I echo the ancient words etched in stone at the prophetic temple of Delphi in ancient Greece. "Know thyself." When I know myself, as I truly am, I no longer mistake actions, thoughts or feelings, that inevitably lead to suffering, for a path to happiness. And thus I solve once and for all the perplexing problem of evil. Join myself and host/producer Lisa Berry for the next episode of "OM School Live" every Tuesday at 12 noon eastern time (5pm UTC). at https://youtube.com/gpwalsh.

6 FEB 2022 · Call Off the Search “We already are That for which we are seeking." - Papaji Have you ever spent time looking for your keys or sunglasses only to find that they were in your hand all along? Of course, everybody has. It is a fascinating and mysterious phenomenon of the human mind that we can simply not see what it right in front of us, even filtering out what is touching our skin. That is the power of perception and the power of our assumptions to obscure that which is right there in front of us. Stage magicians know this. They know that people have built in prejudices and presumptions that will allow the magician to distract the viewers to such a degree that they can do something right in front of them and it won't be seen. Airport? Can't miss it When I was learning to fly airplanes (a long time ago) I was doing an approach to an unfamiliar airport. I was flying, my instructor was next to me and said, "Let me know when you have the airport in sight." I was looking quite vigilantly but i just didn't see it. After a while he said, "Do you see the airport?" "No" I replied and he gave me this look of bewilderment. Suddenly I did see it. It filled the windshield. I was right on top of it. I had been looking for something small and distant with such an expectation of what I was going to see that I didn't see what one would think, absolutely no one could miss. Hence my poor instructor's utter bewilderment. By the way I did get better at it. Is the problem we're are naive? Is the problem we don't pay attention? Is the problem that we are easily duped? No, those are all the symptoms of unquestioned assumptions. Once you see how the magician does it, you are never fooled again. This is the whole thrust of spirituality and its simplest and most profound practice, self-inquiry. You see, in this case you are both the magician and the audience. When we have assumptions that are not questioned we will miss that which is right in front of us. Suppose you grew up with very disapproving parents who were never satisfied with anything you ever did. As a child, mommy and daddy are always right and so you conclude that "I am just not smart enough." This sinks into the nervous system not as a thought but as an assumption so unquestionable that it rarely appears in conscious thought. Yet it is silent influencing all your perceptions. All the evidence to the contrary will be either overlooked, ignored or reframed into something self-diminishing. It isn't true. It never was. But perceptions shapes our experience in such a way that it is literally what we see, hear, feel, smell, taste and think. You may even take "How To Be Smart" seminars and try all sorts of smart pills. But the fact is, you are already smart. Your parents were wrong. They simply did not see your value because they didn't see their own. So when the spiritual teacher comes along and says, "You already are everything you have been seeking" you say "Huh?" We are incredulous.Yet, the teacher insists. You are that already. You just don't see it." To quote Christ in the Gospel of Thomas "The kingdom of God is spread upon the earth, but the people do not see it." Spiritual awakening is not some form of altered, mystical, expanded consciousness. It is a revealing of what has always been, Even accepting the possibility that maybe this is the case, opens the doors of perception to allow in evidence that was totally filtered out just a moment before. When something deeply believed to be true is seen, not as true, but only as an assumption believed to be true, immediately perception shifts. You see the world differently because you see yourself differently. So consider this, as least as a possibility. What if you already are everything you had ever hoped to be? What if it was only your beliefs that were holding you back and nothing real. Can you take that in just as a possibility and just see what happens. Maybe you will call off the search for that new, improved you out there. Maybe the keys have been in your hand all along. Join myself and host/producer Lisa Berry for the next episode of "OM School Live" every Tuesday at 12 noon eastern time (5pm UTC). at http://youtube.com/gpwalsh.

26 JAN 2022 · "Tear off the mask. Your face is glorious." - Rumi If the soul is on a journey, to where is it headed? Has it left eternity to wander through time? Has it lost its anchor in the cosmos? Did it begin like a newborn some aeons ago? Is there some terminus, some destiny that awaits? Must it learn to see its own glorious face? When we speak of the heart and soul of something, we speak of its essence. We speak of the raw reality, stripped of all add-ons, accumulated extras, barnacles and slivers. And yet we seem to think of Soul as a person, created at some distant point, traveling through countless lifetimes, learning, developing, growing toward some, as of yet, unknown conclusion. It is self-evidently true that, in our human lives, we experience growth, evolution, acquired knowledge and (hopefully) wisdom. It is then natural for us to assume that this process of ever deepening insight had a beginning and perhaps some final scene. But I don't believe that is the case. While a musician or composer improves over their lifetime, does music improve. Certainly individual creations that express the wonder of music improve, grow, evolve. But does music? Perhaps it is only the expression of music that grows. It even reaches a pinnacle of its time and becomes perfected. Only to be subject to the whims of changing times and a whole new field of expression opens up. I think of the Soul like that. What appears as growth is, in fact, the ever expanding appearing of the infinite in the field of time. Soul is such a rich word. It conveys color, depth, warmth and heart. It is like a rhythm that pulsates and animates an otherwise lifeless body. Soul is Life having fun, celebrating its own glorious face. And since, like music is not bound by the song, Soul is not bound by the body, it is only made manifest in it, it is only Soul's expression that evolves. And again like music, it remains an inexhaustible and mysterious essence. I personally experience growth, progress, ever increasing quality, subtlety and nuance and rejoice in that experience. But those appearances are only an ever increasing awareness of a boundless source, a fountain that never runs dry, a lotus that never stops opening, the unquenchable fire of Soul expression. So is the Soul on a journey? From where to where? Where is there to go in the infinite? And when did this journey happen in the eternal now? No, Soul sends forth the fragrance of time and space so that it can fill it with its own forever unfolding mystery. And then, in the heart and mind of every form it itself has spontaneously mused into existence, it rejoices. It populates eternity, blissfully in delight of the beauty of its own glorious face. And that face is you.

21 JAN 2022 · “If you're really a mean person you're going to come back as a fly and eat poop.” ― Kurt Cobain The most difficult, tenacious and subtle of all the unconscious beliefs that govern our lives, none compares to the VOW! So what exactly is a vow? let me give you an example. Here are a bunch of common, unconscious beliefs we hold I can't make enough money I can't find a good man I can't get my needs met Now contrast that to the same underlying belief but as a vow. I wont find a good man I won't make enough money I won't get my needs met One is a statement of a deep belief, that grew out of difficult, traumatic events of the past. Even the most tenacious of beliefs have within them the desire that some day, somehow things could be different. The other is a powerful act of will. It asserts that even if things could be different they should not be and I am committed to keeping it that way. From the point of view of spiritual healing you can come to see that you are suffering, not because you are not enough and therefore can't do a particular thing, but because you believe yourself to not be enough. This is an unconscious belief we picked up early in life and it has just stuck around. It can take some time but these unconscious believes can be brought to the surface, released from the nervous system and you will find yourself actually feeling like you are enough. But a vow is different. It makes no difference whether you can or cannot, what you are enough or not, whether you are worthy or not. You simply won't allow it to happen. A vow, in the way I use the term is an energetic, karmic commitment or contract. It is a sacred, unbreakable commitment to live your life in a certain way, according to a particular code of behavior, forever! Yes, that's right, forever. A deeply held energetic, sacred vow will remain in effect throughout every subsequent lifetime, until it is uncovered and you are released from it. Vows of silence. celibacy, poverty, unselfish service are all common ones we know of in various religious traditions. But we each have our own version of these. I will never be happy I will never be rich (I will only allow myself to get by) I will never hurt another being (no matter how much I am hurt) I will always follow the rules (even to my detriment) I will always punish myself (for everything) Where do these come from? Let me give you an example from my own life. When I was little my father and my older brother took great pleasure in tickling me. They would do it all the time. I hated it. I remember, quite vividly, one day I decided, "I will never be ticklish again" and I wasn't. The tickling stopped, of course, because it was no fun for them anymore. But I was never ticklish ever again, by anyone, and I still am not. How many more of those kinds of vows, made to stop things happening to us, have we made in our lives that, while still be enforced have completely slipped out of conscious awareness? Now that is a rather benign example. My life is not adversely affected by me not being ticklish. But, imagine, that same kid who, whenever he asked for help got hurt instead and as a result making the vow, "I won't ever ask anyone for help and if they offer I will not accept it." This type of vow, avoiding some painful consequence, is actually easy to become free of. There is another kind though that is not easy at all. In the next blog I will go both of these kinds of vows and begin talk specifically about one that affects almost all of us; money vows. Join myself and host/producer Lisa Berry for the next episode of "OM School Live" every Tuesday at 12 noon eastern time (5pm UTC). at http://youtube.com/gpwalsh.