Elements of Leadership

By George A. Boyd ©2020

Q: What constitutes effective leadership?

A: Leadership appears to constitute the following elements within a corporation:

  1. Empowerment – A leader empowers others to do their job, providing resources and support, but holds them accountable for the results they produce
  2. Persuasion – A leader effectively persuades others to carry out the organization’s mission
  3. Vision – A leader clearly communicates the organization’s mission to others.
  4. Strategy and Plan – A leader details a step-by-step plan to implement the vision, and develops contingency plans for potential obstacles or unforeseen events
  5. Accountability – A leader takes responsibility for his or her actions and decisions, takes ownership for mistakes, and tells the truth
  6. Encouragement – A leader sets the tone for the organization, conveying realistic optimism, and gives hope to others during periods of setback or obstacles
  7. Builds upon Success – A leader incrementally improves the organization’s internal procedures to bring about improved efficiency, better morale, and increases sales to augment profits, shareholder returns, and the organization’s overall financial profile; aims to move the organization to new levels of effectiveness and profitability

To evaluate the effectiveness of a leader, you could rate that leader on a scale of zero to ten for each of these seven factors. We would expect a leader that scored above 80% overall on this scale would be effectively and consistently move his or her organization in a positive direction.

Q: How does leadership play out in spiritual organizations? How does leadership express in spirituality?

A: Here you have to tease apart how a spiritual organization is run on the Physical Plane and the motivating and supportive dynamics that its Initiates and advanced disciples demonstrate to sustain the development of those who affiliate with the group.

You could certainly evaluate the effectiveness of leadership in a Physical Plane organization using these same criteria. What we might call its Higher Planes leadership—the internal impetus from its Initiates and advanced disciples supporting spiritual development and actualization of personal and spiritual potentials—appears to also draw upon these factors.

We can use Mudrashram® as an example of how the Multiplane Masters of the Mudrashram® lineage employ these Higher Plane leadership factors:

  1. Empowerment – The Masters empower you to unfold and awaken you spiritual potentials. They give you a transformational mantra to unfold your Soul. They teach you how to free your spirit and enable it to return to its origin. They teach you how to activate your intentional consciousness, which we call the attentional principle. The teach you to safely awaken the Kundalini to allow you to utilize the full potentials of your mind. This empowerment enables you to take charge of your spiritual evolution.
  2. Persuasion – They give inspired discourse (Satsang) to persuade you to use your time wisely and productively to maximize your personal and spiritual growth.
  3. Vision – They communicate to you what is possible when you reach the highest levels of the Great Work in the seventh stage of spiritual development, which includes the Bridge Path, and the Sixth and Seventh Transcendental Path.
  4. Strategy and Plan – They clearly delineate the plan for your spiritual development through all levels of the Continuum. They give you customized strategies to overcome any obstacles you might be encountering in you meditations.
  5. Accountability – They hold the human lineage holder, who represents the lineage, to the highest standards. They insist that the lineage holder tell you the truth, and if he has made a mistake, to admit it and correct it.
  6. Encouragement – They offer encouragement and support to Mudrashram® students, and hold out that progress is possible despite obstacles you might be encountering in your meditations, or difficulties you are dealing with in your life.
  7. Builds upon success – They have moved Mudrashram® a long way since its inception in 1983! They are continually developing new ways to educate, support, and train Mudrashram® students.

Examples of building upon success in Mudrashram® are:

Already in Place

  • They have developed training courses and workshops for beginning, intermediate, and advanced meditation students
  • They have provided books, webinars, library articles and videos, and web log posts to educate Mudrashram® students and seekers about meditation
  • They have put into place coaching programs to support people overcome difficulties that hinder them from effectively meditating
  • They have implemented certification programs to train healing arts practitioners, therapists, and counselors to apply meditation to help their clients
  • They have instituted Teacher Training Programs to train advanced meditation students to teach others our beginning, intermediate, and advanced meditation classes
  • They have made available spiritual guidance readings and attunements to provide individualized guidance for Mudrashram® students and seekers

Currently Under Development

  • They are developing an eBook series to extend the scope of existing educational materials
  • Mudrashram® will become a non-profit organization to improve its ability to serve Mudrashram® students and spiritual seekers

The inner inspiration and support that the Initiates of a spiritual tradition supply is the crucial factor that makes the difference as to whether those who affiliate with that teaching make genuine spiritual progress. This Higher Plane leadership is the guiding star that gives its Physical Plane spiritual organization its mission and motivation to continue.

On Psychological Blindness

On Psychological Blindness and Its Relationship to Other Types

By George A. Boyd ©2020

Q: Does psychological blindness—an unwillingness to see something—have a role in blocking or suppressing other octaves of sight?

A: Psychological blindness is predicated upon not wanting to bring something into your awareness. Psychological deafness, similarly, is founded upon not wanting to hear something.

A process you can do to get to the bottom of these two types of blocking awareness is:

For Psychological Blindness

“What am I unwilling to see?”

“What would happen if I saw that?

For Psychological Deafness

“What am I unwilling to hear?”

“What would happen if I heard that?

You repeat this process for each area of psychological blindness and deafness until there are no more responses from your unconscious mind.

The Eight Major Types of Blindness

It’s important that you identify the eight major types of blindness and deafness. While I describe types of blindness below, you can apply these same principles to deafness.

  1. Physical blindness – This is damage to the eyes, optic nerve, or other neurological areas of sight from trauma or disease. This is the province of medical care; however, some people do get help through radiative healing modalities to regain sight.
  2. Psychological blindness – This appears as an unwillingness to see certain truths about yourself. This is part of the array of psychological defenses that assemble at the fifth layer of the egoic structure to protect accessing the painful and shameful issues in your Shadow. Using methods like Vipassana, Process Meditation, and Mandala Method—techniques we teach in our intermediate meditation courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program—can help you penetrate this layer of the mind and get down to the truth that you are trying to hide.
  3. Astral blindness – This is an inability to turn on the astral octave of sight. Symptoms of this type of blindness include inability to remember what you see in your dreams, hypnosis, or guided meditations. Those that do regression hypnosis suggest that this might arise from trauma experienced in your current or past lives. The inability to associate your attention with your astral sense of sight or your astral intuitive eye when you are in union with the astral body may also play a role in blocking this octave of sight.
  4. Attentional blindness – This is the experience of not being able to collect your attention and be present (mindfulness) and to become aware of the content of the inner vehicles at different levels of the mind. This type is commonly associated with distraction or difficulty in concentration. Your mind wanders and cannot hold to the focal point that is your object of meditation.
  5. Attentional principle (metavisional) blindness – In this type, your challenge is becoming conscious of the attentional principle and its experience. When you cannot achieve this state of fusion with the attentional principle, you lack the ability to objectively view the contents of the levels of the Subconscious, Metaconscious, Superconscious, or unconscious mind that lie above the pituitary center of the chakras of the Subconscious mind—that is the seat of the attentional principle. This usually is a by-product of attentional blindness—you can’t focus your attention upon the attentional principle, so you can’t shift into its perceptual frame.
  6. Spiritual blindness – Here you cannot gain union with your spirit—in whatever domain you are attempting to contact it—and enter into its experience that it has in its ground state at the entrance to the Nadamic Path and of the contents of the inner channels of the Nadamic currents that it opens during Nada Yoga practice. This also appears to stem from attentional blindness—when you can’t move your attention into the presence of your spirit and fuse with it, you can’t awaken into its perspective.
  7. Intuitional blindness – When this type of blindness is present, you cannot intuitively perceive or discern the contents of your Superconscious mind up to your current stage of spiritual development. Your Illumined mind or Buddhi does not respond when you ask a question.

When you ask your Soul to show you (e.g., allow you to see something), your higher mind does not present any images or ideas. When you ask it to tell you, you do not hear its voice of intuition. When you ask it to guide you so you can directly experience a selected object of meditation, it does not move your attention to that location.

Entering the state of Samadhi helps awaken your Buddhic capsule and rehabilitate this faculty. Attunements that purify the Antakarana may help some people to recapture their communion with the Soul’s knowledge, wisdom, and discernment. Some people report that they can get guidance from a spiritual guide, an angel, or calling upon the form of the Divine that they invoke, but not their own Soul—we suggest that the same facility of communication that they experience with these other sources can be re-established with the Soul.

  1. Core blindness – When you experience this, you are unable to see or know your ensouling entity. People struggling with this type cannot find their Soul, or they feel their Soul has been lost. Lack of Realization or Gnosis leads to ignorance of your true nature; for many people, an enlightenment experience rectifies this. Attentional blindness is commonly associated with this type, as well: if you cannot place your attention upon the Soul, you do not become aware of it and realize it.

For types 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8, the inability to focus your attention may hinder your ability to operate at this level of sight. Mastery of Raja Yoga and/or the methodical study of the vehicles of consciousness of the Conscious, Subconscious, and Metaconscious mind in our Introduction to Meditation Program may help you train your attention to settle down, focus, contemplate, and enter into union with your object of meditation.

Q: I have tried for years to see within. I’m beginning to believe there is something wrong with me. Am I doing something wrong?

A: Inner sight and hearing—octaves three through eight—are your birthright. Unlike physical sight or psychological sight, which may be compromised through physical injury or disease, or psychological trauma, these higher octaves of sight—and hearing—are always operating.

I like to use the analogy of a television station. Their signal is going out from their transmission tower: to see and hear what they are broadcasting, you have to tune in that station. The channel selector within your mind is your attention, and you must exactly tune in the subtle visual and auditory signals that come from the astral, metavisional, spiritual, and core octaves within you.

Your challenge is simply to master focusing your attention, and allowing yourself to shift into the perspective of these other octaves of sight and hearing. Paradoxically, it is your opening and surrendering to these levels within you that enable you to effortlessly see and hear—so you start by finding the essence within you, and then you invite it to let you enter its experience.

This is a challenge, but I suggest to you if you will not give up, but persist in this quest to rehabilitate these higher octaves of sight and hearing, you will reawaken them and you will experience from their higher perspectives.

Q: I feel so demoralized. Is my attitude interfering with my ability to activate these higher octaves of sight and hearing?

A: There are several attitudes and beliefs that people hold about inner seeing and hearing. Here are some examples:

  1. It is impossible for people to see inwardly. It is utter fancy to believe this is possible. The brain has no apparatus to allow this.
  2. If people see within, it is just their faculty of imagination at work. They simply visualize something—e.g., God lives up in up in the sky; He has a white hair and a long white beard, and has piercing blue eyes—and assume what they have created in their mind is real. People entertain all types of self-delusion through this means. This is not inner sight; it is fantasy.
  3. If some people see within, it is because they have been granted a special gift from God or Nature that most people do not have. If you don’t have this gift, it is futile to even try. Can a cow change its spots?
  4. If people see within, it is because they perform special practices or discipline that most people cannot do—this enables these select individuals to achieve inner sight. It is conceivable if you did the same practices they do accurately and assiduously, you could develop the rudiments of inner sight. You would probably need years to fully activate this faculty, like the yogis who do special continuous meditations in caves.
  5. If people see within, they are rehabilitating and ability that dies out generations ago, because we had no use for it. They must learn to rehabilitate the subtle octaves of sight humanity had in another Age—this might take some time, but it is worthwhile because it is their birthright. Some people are able to do this, so it is possible.
  6. If people are not seeing within, it is only because they do not place their attention in the levels of the mind where seeing is possible. If they keep their attention in the ground state of awareness in their Conscious mind, inner seeing is not possible. But if they put their attention on the focal points where inner seeing ignites, it is possible. We expect that many who don’t see inwardly could see if they did this practice.
  7. The current of inner sight runs from the brain to the Soul in everyone. It is simply a matter of tuning in the subtle signals that arise from these different octaves of inner sight and shifting into them. While this is difficult for many people, we suspect that if they would faithfully practice, they could activate and experience these other octaves of inner sight.

Based on my studies of the subtle anatomy of human beings—the vehicles of consciousness of their Conscious, Subconscious, Metaconscious, and Superconscious mind—in developing the Mudrashram® Correspondence Course, I observe that perspectives six and seven are true. We suggest that entertaining perspective five, even as a hypothesis, would give you the incentive to at least try to develop your inner sight.

It may be that you have not yet found the inner key to unlock your subtle octaves of sight. So this suggests that you must undertake a variety of approaches until you find one that works for you.

These other perspectives, one through four, do not give you much hope. Even the pursuit from these other perspectives seems fanciful or exceedingly difficult.

Some people have found it helpful to do the exercises in our Vision Workshop, which is in our Public Webinar portal on our web site. Anyone is eligible to listen to this in-depth webinar.

Those who complete the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation receive access to multiple webinars on acquiring inner sight. In these webinars, we detail a variety of alternative practices to approach reawakening these faculties of inner sight.

If the methods you have been using haven’t worked, try another way. It is possible. Many people have done this: So can you.

Meditational Methods to Help with these Blindness Types

Q: What meditation methods help with these types of blindness?

A: There are methods that that help with each type. Methods we teach in our beginning class is marked with a (†); in our intermediate classes are marked with a (*); in our advanced class with a (‡); and in our advanced training programs for completers of our advanced course with a (+).

  1. For physical blindness, there is immersion in a healing Light attunement, and asking for healing from the Holy Spirit.
  2. For psychological blindness, we teach Process Meditation*, Truth Process*, Mandala Method*, and Rainbow Method*.
  3. For astral blindness, there is hypnosis to rehabilitate inner sight and past life regression therapy, when this arises from trauma; meditation on the astral body, lucid dreaming technique, rebirthing ‡, and brain entrainment methods.
  4. For attentional blindness, we teach Mindfulness †*, Vipassana †*, and attentional focusing on selected vehicles of consciousness (Samatha or Dharana) †*.
  5. For blindness of the attentional principle, we teach Awakening Meditation*, Purusa Dhyan*, and Tratakam ‡.
  6. For spiritual blindness, we teach Awakening meditation*, and Surat Dhyan*.
  7. For intuitional blindness, we teach Jnana Yoga*‡, awakening the Kundalini*, and Atma Samadhi+.
  8. For core blindness, there are affirmations of identity with the ensouling entity ‡, mantras to focus attention on the ensouling entity ‡, Gnosis technique ‡, and Atma Samadhi+.

You can begin to use these methods to rehabilitate the octaves of sight that are not functioning in you.

Where to Begin

Q: How do I begin to rehabilitate these octaves of sight?

A: You first need to do an assessment to find out which of these octaves are working and which are not.

  • Notice your ability to see physically
  • Notice what you are able to perceive and acknowledge about yourself, and what aspects of your nature are relegated to the unconscious zone of your mind
  • Notice your ability to use the astral octave of sight to recall your dreams, to visualize, to image, and to remote view objects in other locations
  • Notice your ability to concentrate your attention, to be completely focused and present, and to move your attention to selected focal point along the thread of consciousness
  • Notice your ability to objectively view your attention and the contents of your mind
  • Notice your ability to see form your spirit’s perspective
  • Notice your ability to access the knowledge of your Superconscious mind through tapping into your intuitive stream as a reception of images and ideas
  • Notice you ability to know your ensouling entity and be at-one with its Presence.

Once you know where you blockages are, you can apply selected meditations to help reawaken your ability with that octave of sight. If you are having a difficulty overcoming these difficulties yourself, you can get assistance: a psychotherapy session with someone who can help you work with your psychological blindness; a hypnotherapist who can help you activate your astral vision; and a meditation teacher, who can help you rehabilitate blindness types 4 through 8—attentional, attentional principle, spiritual, intuitional, and core sight.

Even though this seems like a daunting task, if you will persist, you will make progress with inner seeing.

Perspectives on Feelings

By George A. Boyd ©2017

When you are working with emotionalized issues of the unconscious mind, there are a variety of perspectives through which you can interface with these issues beyond the threshold of conscious integration.

  1. You can talk about the feeling – this is an intellectual discussion about the feeling, but you have no attentional contact with the feeling
  2. You can talk to the feeling – this objectifies the feeling as a visual “sub-personality,” an auditory “voice,” or a “shape,” a discrete pattern of sensation located in the body. At this level you are establishing a dialog and asking this representation of the issues, and listening for any answers.
  3. You can talk from the feeling – here, you will give the representation of your issue permission to speak through you and express its perspective, and its desires and fears. You would use this method if you were working with a therapist, hypnotist, or coach, who wanted to ask questions of this issue, so that they can understand what it signifies and formulate a strategy to work with it. This is called “giving a voice” to your issue.
  4. You can simply feel the feeling – this allows you to fully experience the feeling in the present time. You observe it arise, process, and pass away. This approach typifies the work of mindfulness or Vipassana meditation—in this method you place your attention on the feeling within your body and hold it there.
  5. You can understand the context of the feeling from its perspective – At this level you focus your attention minutely and look from the viewpoint of the feeling. You gather clues about the context in which the feeling dwells. You notice what the world looks like from its standpoint, what is its relationship with other people, what it wants or needs, what it fears and frustrates it. In this method, you are experiencing what the issue is feeling.
  6. You can “be” the feeling – at this level, you identify with the feeling. This method is used when you re-own a painful, shameful, or frightening pattern you have exiled to the unconscious, where it operates autonomously and beyond your control. Examples of this type in action includes a member of Alcoholics Anonymous publicly declaring that he is an alcoholic, or a male homosexual “coming out” and telling others he is “gay.”
  7. You can love the feeling from a transcendent viewpoint – this perspective has you regard the issue from your Superconscious mind, and regard it with unconditional love and acceptance. Variations of this approach are to send an attunement, such as anchoring the Light of the Holy Spirit in the issue, using the Light to dissolve the issue, or using the Light to transmute the layers of the issue, which are visualized as colored lamina.

We suggest that you become familiar with each approach to working with issues and develop criteria when each one is appropriate. For example:

  • At a dinner party, you might talk about your feelings (type one).
  • If you were working with a therapist, he might ask you to dialog with your feelings (type two), speak from the feeling (type three), or understanding the feeling from its perspective (type five).
  • If you are practicing mindfulness, or working with a therapist who uses mindfulness in their practice, you might be asked to simply experience your feelings as they are, without attempting to change or alter them in any way, and without judgment or criticism (type four).
  • If you are working with a New Age teacher, healer, or metaphysical counselor, you might be led in a guided meditation to make an attunement with your issue and let the Light dissolve it and transform it (type seven).

Practice each of these perspectives so you can produce them at will in yourself. Once you have some confidence doing this on yourself, you can extend this to guiding others to move through these seven different postures. This will especially valuable for those who are doing therapeutic, counseling, and coaching work with their clients.

Those who wish to learn to use meditation as a therapeutic modality may wish to consider taking our Meditation for Therapists Practitioner Certification Course.

Confrontation with Dharma

By George A. Boyd © 2006

Excerpted from Question and Answers with Swami

Q: I’m in a lot of conflict right now. It seems my Soul requires one thing of me—and my parents, friends, and church require another. What do I do?

A: To become your own person, to individualize and realize your authentic self, it sometimes becomes necessary to deviate from established norms that are placed upon you from the outside, so that you may remain true to that norm which is inside (Dharma). To remain true to Dharma means that you are living in integrity, you are in harmony with the law within your own heart. These types of violation of societal norms include:

  • Deviation from cultural (ethnic group) norms – Going against custom, following a life path other than that which is expected
  • Deviation from societal (legal) norms – Breaking the law, performing behavior that violates codifies statutes enacted by legislative bodies
  • Deviation from ancestral (parental) norms – Going against requests of your parents, going against parental expectations of model behavior and lifestyle
  • Deviation from peer (friendship) norms – Performing actions that violate the conscience of friends, going against peer expectations of model behavior and lifestyle
  • Deviation from corporate (workplace) norms – Performing actions that violate company rules or policies, not performing work to required standards of excellence, efficiency, precision accuracy or professionalism
  • Deviation from political (political party) norms – Voting or expressing political opinions that do not agree with the approved ideology of your political party
  • Deviation from religious (religious group) norms – Performing actions that violate behavioral and belief standards established by the church (or other religious body) which the church believes are authorized by scripture and sanctioned by the Divine or the representative (Master, Savior, Prophet) of the Divine
  • Deviation from personal conscience (Dharmic) norms – Violating an internalized standard or value believed to be true, right or good. Not living in integrity with one’s inner sense of truth (Dharma)

Even if you rebel from these outer norms, if you remain true to your inner sense of truth, you will have inner peace. But if you deviate from your Dharma to live up to the outer norms, to fulfill the expectations of your culture, your nation, your parents, your friends, your employer or your religion before your own inner sense of truth, then you will live in conflict. This conflict is a felt-sense that something is missing—a vague uneasiness or unidentified anxiety, a feeling that your own self is angry with you, is condemning you for your folly or a sense of emptiness or desolation within.

Dharma appears in different forms according to the Ray type of the individual:

First Ray – The Will of God, the Fiery Triangle

Second Ray – The Wheel of the Law, the Eightfold Path of Noble Truth

Third Ray – The Law of God, the Ten Commandments, the Divine Order behind the laws of the Physical and Astral Planes, the laws underlying the Creation of Heaven and Earth

Fourth Ray – The Law of Nature and Consciousness, the Way, the Tao

Fifth Ray – The Law of Truth, the Razor’s Edge, Perfection, Perfect Mastery

Sixth Ray – The Law of Love and Grace, living according to the Master or Savior’s commandments

Seventh Ray – The Tree of Life (Kabala) – the Laws of Karma, Manifestation, Wisdom and Spiritual Essence

On whatever Ray it manifests to you, this image, voice, or felt-sense of Dharma will become very clear to you at certain crucial points in your life.

  • Sometimes your Dharma will require of you things that go against your desires, your plans, or what seems reasonable to you.
  • Sometimes, when you have already started on a course of action, it will pull you back and start you down another path.
  • Sometimes it will unexpectedly intervene when you wish to marry someone and indicate that this person is not right for you.
  • Sometimes it will bid you to leave the security of your job and strike out on your own.

However Dharma manifests to you, when it confronts you, you have a choice. Do you follow this inner requirement of your Soul or do you follow the dictates of your desire, your preferences or your reason?

If you follow Dharma, it will sometimes create disruption in your life.
You may have to:

  • Cancel plans
  • Make awkward explanations to friends and family about your sudden “irrational” decision
  • Go through unforeseen personal sacrifice and hardships
  • Do things that feel terrifying or illogical to you
  • Re-think where your life is going and what you will do with the rest of your life
  • Experience antipathy and continual criticism from those who were your friends and colleagues
  • Receive threats of violence or promises of revenge from those whose values and beliefs you have acted against through courageously acting upon your integrity

If you reflect upon it from the standpoint of your ego, the part of you that only wants to fulfill its own desires, live its dreams and be happy—it is madness; it is utter lunacy.

But from the standpoint of the Soul, it is an absolute requirement: it is necessary to fulfill the Divine requirement.

Because of this, you will run into a conflict between the free will agency of the personality, which wants to have its own way and create the future it desires, versus the impulse of Destiny, the pressure of the spiritual life upon the human life, which is a Dharmic imperative.

If you run away from your Dharma, your decision haunts you. You have your freedom, but it is a hollow, tormented freedom. Things go wrong, you sabotage yourself, your plans fall through—it seems to you sometimes that the world is against you.

It passes through your mind that you are cursed or that you have sinned against some higher principle. You feel a sense of desperation. You may achieve your goals and find that they have no enjoyment for you, they seem empty and meaningless.

Outside the door, the Soul waits, until the karma that you have created by your own free will plays itself out. This may last from a number of days to several lifetimes. Then your Soul will appear before you, its Voice will whisper to you, you will feel its presence once again. Again you will be given the opportunity to follow, to fulfill your Dharma. What will you choose this time? Will you again choose your egoic freedom and abandon your Soul?

This process of choosing or abandoning your Soul is placed before you. Sometimes it can occur from moment to moment at certain periods. Sometimes it will appear only one time in your lifetime. It is put before you to live according to the requirements of your Dharma—or abandon it and reap the karmic consequences. This requirement is very definite: there are no gray areas here—it is yea or nay, and there is no middle ground.

Forced choice is used in ethnic groups, in society, by parents, friends, and employers, in political parties, and in religious conversion and preaching to require you to make a decision. It is very clear to you what the consequences will be if you do not choose what they want you to do.

On the other side is your Soul, which also places before you the forced choice of embracing or abandoning your Dharma. From the outside, these social forces that make powerful demands of you are pulling you one way. From the inside, your Soul is pulling you another.

Sometimes it must feel to you that you are being ripped apart. People sometimes do go insane and have nervous breakdowns because the pressure is too great. It stretches them beyond their limits and their capacity to endure. It breaks them apart, because they cannot have both what the world desires and what the Soul requires.

People who become mystics, saints, and sages tell us that they have not regretted choosing Dharma, but that it was a very difficult, arduous path they traveled as a result of the choice.

People who have embraced the dictates of their ego, who have followed the path of desires, obeyed the cultural requirements of their group, their society, their parents, peers, and employers and have faithfully followed their religion tell us that they have lived good, reasonable happy lives. They tell us that they have had no major confrontations with their conscience and they believe that their Soul is safe in the hands of their Savior, Master, or Prophet.

This is a very difficult choice that you must make, a life-wrenching choice. It seems cruel that Life has required this of you, and has spared others to be at peace with themselves and with the world.
Your Soul is calling you, making requirements of you that don’t make sense. You feel frightened and confused, and don’t know whom to trust. If you tell your friends and family, they will think that you have gone mad. If you go to a psychiatrist, he or she will certify that you are insane and give you medication to shut down your whirling thoughts and churning emotions.

If you go to your priest or minister, he or she will tell you that it is the Devil talking to you and to follow the teachings of the church. Where do you turn at a time like this?

It helps to pray and ask the Divine for guidance, to show you the outcome of both choices, to bless you to make the best decision for you. Then you must decide, you must choose a path. It may be the right way, it may be the wrong way, but you must choose and take the consequences.

When you realize that your choices do have consequences, you start to gain wisdom, you begin to be able to take responsibility for your life. This is a major challenge for every human being. This is an important step of growth for you.

It is not easy when you have to confront your Dharma, but it can be a great blessing to you if you can successfully navigate these troubled waters. We encourage you to be courageous, to rouse yourself, and rise to this challenge. Face it like a warrior. Be ready to make a firm and resolute decision. Be willing to cast your holy yea or nay. Be willing to have those who are not your true friends fall away, because those that truly love you will love you still, even if you follow a path that they do not approve of or understand.

Confrontation with Dharma can be a shattering, life-changing, revolutionary experience. But sometimes it is the greatest opportunity you will ever be presented.