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What are the pros and cons of a woman joining an ashram and staying there for her entire life?

6/8/2023

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The pros and cons for a woman joining an ashram and staying there for the rest of her life are slightly different from those for men who choose to join a monastic path. Both want to accelerate their understanding of the unseen, powerful world of the spirit and manifest it in a way that erases their individual egos.
  • The pros:
---Less emphasis on physical appearance, especially according to cultural norms of beauty.---

Women all over the world spend a huge amount of time and money on making themselves look good so they will fit in, or receive praise and validation, or to just not be rejected. This is all a function of the frightened ego-mind, which is constantly chasing after fixing things and appearing to have it all “made” so someone will love you. If you are in an ashram, simple hygiene is all you need and your inner light provides the rest.

You are not concerned with shopping and accumulating fashionable or fabulous clothes because you wear a simple habit, uniform, or have a way of dressing that does not emphasize the external. Therefore, you have time to devote to long contemplation; serving others to eliminate suffering, and keeping inner peace without distractions.

---No need to continually be at the beck and call of husbands and children.---

For centuries, women’s biology has been their destiny. That is why we didn’t have many great female composers, mathematicians, painters or even writers until the 19th century. Up to that point the majority of women were engaged in the endless tasks of looking after children, cooking, tending to the men, and keeping house. Even if they had servants, their time was taken up by traditional household and social maintenance. The great female writers of the 19th century such as the Brontes and Jane Austen, were not married and thus had time for intellectual pursuits, spiritual development, and self-expression.

Now we have birth control and are not forced into the endless sacrifices of motherhood time every time our husbands need to fulfill their urges (or we need to fulfill ours). But still, with all the information overload and being bombarded by our attention-seeking society, it is more demanding than ever to rear children. And it may be a thankless job, if the Souls are not in alignment with ours and they may leave us after all the love and passion we put into them.

And so a woman might want to opt out of all of this compulsion and just live simply and in peace. If you want to surround yourself with women who are sincerely on the path to Soul and Spirit, this could be just the right place. The rest of the world does not encourage spirituality and even laughs at it if you bring it up as a topic at a party. In general the world thinks that there’s something weird about you. If you are in an ashram, everyone is on the same page of finding their inner joy through praise and service.

---No need to be appealing to men to bolster validity or to fulfill sexual needs.---

Again, we are biological creatures, driven by certain compulsions that can be beyond our control. Sexual needs can cause us to be in relationships that are far from spiritually nourishing. It might be best for some women to just opt out of the whole dance. These women feel best when they bypass their bodily needs and pour all their passion into the radiant beauty of the Perfect Universe.

---De-emphasizing a life of tasks and material maintenance---

Most people’s jobs are repetitive and are dedicated to making the rich, richer. Or, if you are an entrepreneur, you will be spending 18-hours a day to keep your business viable. Taking care of a house is exhausting and it just gets dirty quickly anyway. And it is all for the narrow needs of just one family. In the ashram, you are still doing tasks, but they are dedicated to a higher good and it feels like it is worth the effort.
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  • Cons:

---You don’t need to be away from the world to do things with mindfulness, grace, and praise.---

Just changing location or venue is no guarantee that the ego-mind won’t find another way to act up. As a spiritually grounded being, you can be in the midst of screaming babies and find that place of peace within. You don’t need to go anywhere to find the Heart of the Universe.

Sometimes an ashram can be filled with spiritual one-upmanship, as in: “You’re just a novice. I’ve been doing this for 20 years.” The hierarchical structure may be just as restricting as being in regular society and just as snobby.

Even if the surroundings are different, the ego mind and its fearful tricks can pipe up in fresh, new ways that leave us stewing and wondering if we made a really wrong choice. Being in the ashram and burning all your financial bridges so you can’t back out of the commitment, forces you to eradicate the ego and even find others who can assist you. For your back will once again, be up against the wall.

---It can be a form of escape from jobs, household maintenance, and financial concerns.---

Getting a job and performing repetitive, boring tasks for the sake of making the rich get richer is not emotionally or spiritually fulfilling. Facing piles of laundry after a day at the job to be able to pay for housing is one example of the treadmill of material maintenance that can block our access to peace of mind. And so some women want to opt out of all of it.
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At the ashram, most of the decisions are made for you. You follow a certain protocol. You, as an individual ego, are being erased. You are like a raindrop that has merged with the pond. And you don’t have to bother with all the concerns that grown-ups have to face. You don’t have to worry about money and all your food is provided for you. It is like being a kid again in some ways. Is this a pro or a con? It depends on how you look at it.
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Who is Eckhart Tolle? Why should we read him? What is his background?

5/30/2023

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Let’s begin by saying that nobody “should” read anything. Either what someone has written resonates within our consciousness and inner being, or it does not. No one is saying we should read or listen to anyone. However, if what someone is imparting to us leads to a new understanding of life and who we are, then we will want to hear what they are communicating. Either we see that the relief Tolle is bringing is of value to us, or it isn’t.

Eckhart Tolle is a well-educated man who is fluent in several languages and studied Psychology, Philosophy, and Literature at the University of London. He also was in a postgraduate program at Cambridge towards his PhD, from which he dropped out.

But his education, and even his intelligence and ability to write and speak effectively, have nothing to do with the insight he brings to the human condition. Knowledge and education were of no comfort to him during the fretful nights and anxious days that plagued him for many years. Education, learning, degrees, and credentials have nothing whatsoever to do with grasping what he came here to teach.

His teachings focus on the power and beauty of being in the present moment. This awakened state of consciousness goes beyond the unfortunate tricks of the ego and its non-stop tangle of thoughts. If we are going to survive as a species and not wreck most of the planet in the process, this awakening is the essential next step in human evolution.

All the ancient spiritual communicators have brought this same message. Tolle just relates it to our times. He chronicles how the human ego, unique only to humans, causes untold suffering and destruction—as witnessed by history. With 110 million estimated people who have been put to death under communism alone, the rest of the death toll resulting from humans inflicting violence on each other is monstrous. So he is putting this ancient philosophy in the context of historical as well as modern developments that affect the peace and well-being of each one of us.
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So, nobody “should” read his reflections on how the ego-mind works just because he is the latest authority on how we should live our lives and win the game of life. But if we passionately want to find a way out of the knots the ego-mind, which cannot abide in the present moment, then he is there to guide the way.
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How do you know you are an immortal individual infinitely aware spiritual being?

5/5/2023

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Practical knowledge can change through the years and is based on experimentation, observation, facts, information, and skills acquired through education. Spiritual knowledge is based on awareness and individual experience of another energy field, often unavailable to the physical senses.

And so we really can’t “know” that we are immortal individual infinitely aware spiritual beings. We can only experience this vibrational field. We cannot find this in books or talks. Others can point the way through these methods, but we have to have the direct experience of this infinite awareness to be the “knower” of this state of consciousness.

This state of awareness comes through many ways but the easiest for me is experiencing the peace of being in the present moment, the joy of a loving heart, and gratitude and wonderment at the mystery of life. It is not something to know and say, “I’ve got it all solved and I know it.”

Hidebound knowledge is based on the past. It is established. We know something to be true because other people told us so and wrote it in books. Knowledge has the quality of being written in stone. It is not considered to be a fluid, changing thing. Yet we can still find many cases of “facts” that were thought to be common knowledge and now are completely debunked. For example, at one time we “knew” that the earth was the center of the universe, that the earth was flat, and that bloodletting of already weak and sickly patients was a cure-all for what ailed them.

As De Bruin says, “… the human mind is loyal to what it has known and used for a longer period, even when confronted with the incorrectness of that knowledge.”
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Fluid, cosmic knowledge (in this case awareness) changes, grows, and is not confined to the past. It is experienced now. When that awareness comes to us, we are the Knower of The Now. We are the watcher. It is something we can only hint about. It is difficult to express through language and is not subject to debate about whether we are right or wrong. Ultimately, we feel it in our heart and gut and it has very little to do with the human mind except as a means of communication.
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How did Eckart Tolle become enlightened, and what was his life like before he became enlightened?

4/29/2023

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Eckart Tolle had been an extremely unhappy and depressed child and young man. His parents weren’t getting along, finally split, and he felt the atmosphere of joylessness in his surroundings. He felt alienated at school and even dropped out for a while. His excellently logical mind and personal experience drove him to reason that life was a meaningless round of pain with a few moments of short-lived happiness mixed in just to keep us going in the quest for survival.

Then, one night, while he was lying awake being tortured by his endless stream of anxious and sad thoughts, he said, “I can’t stand myself anymore!” This led him to reason that there must be two selves—one that can’t stand the other. It was such a weird contradiction, it “blew his mind.” Who is this self that he can’t take anymore?

This question cleared his mind and he was able to go back to sleep, peacefully. The next morning, the world appeared bright and clean to him—sparkling like a diamond. The birdsong outside his window took on the dimensions of a brilliant diamond as well. All of the world was new and fresh and he felt deep gratitude for these first-time revelations. For he saw there was a Big Me (the source energy of the universe localized within his body) and the Little Me (a frightened animal, trying to ensure its survival in an uncaring world).

This began his period of life when he acknowledged his immortal, spiritual Self for the first time. It was an act of grace and was also because he was brought to his knees by despair. This is how it happens to some. Some are initiated by a guru, others get it through holy visions, some through divine communication, some through shamanic or psychedelic rituals. Enlightenment was bestowed on Eckart Tolle through grace. Grace can be likened to heavenly intervention but the ground needs to be prepared for us to let it in (usually our back is against the wall).
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He was ready to receive the inspiration that brought on enlightenment. He was directly experiencing the eternal present moment. He dropped out of his academic career to sit on a park bench and contemplate his discovery about the unseen world. He was deeply happy for the first time. His family thought he was crazy. But he knew within his Soul that he had found a path. The path is always being in the Now and that is where he lives to this day.
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What are some reasons why the book "The Awakening of Intelligence" by J. Krishnamurti is highly regarded?

4/27/2023

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I am glad to hear that J. Krishnamurti’s The Awakening of Intelligence is highly regarded. For I was under the impression that people have moved on to more spectacular gurus, that offer more entertainment.

Krishamurti was serious about understanding what is really holy about life and all its permutations. He wasn’t about ceremonies, dancing and writhing around in ecstasy, and putting on a dramatic display of how “enlightened” we are. He was more like what Jesus said when someone asked him how to pray. He wasn’t for the big public grandstanding of the ego, showing how religious one is and how one is going to “heaven.” He said,

“When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”
—Matthew 6:5-6

Krishnamurti is about the inward journey towards finding out what is really true for us. Not what others tell us, not what we believe because we were brought up that way, and not because it is a trendy lifestyle to be caught up in Bikram yoga and Osho’s sexual pyrotechnics because we are lost and lonely.
​

I am not surprised that Krishanmurti has stood the test of time. I am just surprised that in this period of mass amusement, passing as spirituality, that he would be embraced at all. He is not kidding and he is not nice. He outright tells us to look within and find the wisdom that resides in silence and stillness. It’s not effortful. It’s a quiet space that discards all the trapping of what everyone else tells us is “the Truth.”
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What is the relationship between depression and spiritual awareness? Does being spiritually awakened help depressives cope with their condition?

4/4/2023

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Simply put, depression is lack of spiritual awareness. Depression is being lost in the quagmire of the ego-mind, the “little me,” and not seeing a way out. It is endless hopelessness and anger turned inward. It is being upset, anxious, and sluggish, lacking in energy. And it is being dragged along by a fearful mind that is bent on survival above anything else, including happiness.

This is because the ego-mind and it’s constant babble shuts out the spiritual vibrational fields that bring inner peace, comfort, joy, and appreciation of all the beauty around us. It focusses on “what’s wrong with this picture?”, finding a flaw in everything and then zoning in on that flaw. This includes finding fault with ourselves, others, and with the world. Of course, at one time this enabled us to survive and rise to the top of the food chain. But now, like the appendix, it is a useless function that causes more harm than good.

Spiritual awareness, which is tuning into another level of vibration and being receptive to it, is the only way out of depression. People have tried drugs for centuries but they are only a quick fix. They usually need augmentation as the ego-mind finds its ways around them (like a fox trying to get into a henhouse). They also do not build coping skills. Some drugs have opened peoples’ consciousness to non-physical realms but they are also only a temporary doorway.

Tuning into the underlying Source Energy of the Universe brings us into an awareness that we are more than our rambunctious minds. We are not so apt to be carried away by the “little me” and it’s perpetual worries. When we allow the natural well-being of All That Is permeate us we are actually harnessing that energy and we can freely flow with life now. We are not stuck in the past and we are not worried over the future because we live in Eternity. This is the only lasting source of happiness, joy, and excitement about being alive. We step back from the mind and all its anxiety and depressive tendencies and allow ourselves to experience eternity, space, freedom and move into the vibrational space of Spirit.

Spiritual awareness needs practice to get there for most people. It’s worth it to find our way to emotional freedom and joy. All other methods, including talk therapy and drugs have been enormous failures, with a few individual exceptions. Also, I am not vilifying our thinking apparatus, the miraculous mind that is capable of creativity, problem-solving, and communication. That aspect of the mind is in keeping with the miracles of the Universe. Being in contact with Source Energy sharpens those aspects of our thinking because we are not giving so much attention to turmoil and unhappiness.
​

Spiritual awareness also helps people who have chemical or neurological brain imbalances. For they are able to recognize the tricks of depressive thinking. They begin to see how the fretful mind works and are able to put it in its place. They learn to watch their thoughts and even laugh at them, instead of being dragged down into the quicksand. It takes skill and training to do this when we have depressive tendencies. But it’s worth it to uncover the shining light that has always been there: Our Eternal Soul.
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Why did Buddha say, "All things are impermanent" or "Everything is changing" in his first teaching?

3/10/2023

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Buddha discovered a system for alleviating human suffering. He also discovered that one of the major causes of human suffering is that things change. Because we cling to things in the desperate hope that they won’t change and try to control them so they will remain permanent, we are frustrated and frightened. We recognize that, underneath it all, clinging and control don’t work when everything is in a state of flux.

Buddha saw that we cling passionately to our loved ones. And if they die, we can be in mourning for the rest of our lives. Their physical presence is gone. It is not coming back. And we loved them so much, the world looks dimmer and more hostile because of their absence. Who will love us now? Furthermore, this is going to happen to us too. Every cell in our body has changed or been replaced over and over again as we grow, age, begin to weaken, and finally disappear.

This realization causes enormous pain and fear in people and they obsessively fight all the changes: Plastic surgery, large accumulations of wealth beyond what anyone could ever spend, fanatical dietary practices, rigorously dangerous exercise routines, and hoarding all kinds of material goods to hedge against an uncertain future.

The past is not bringing any consolation to our minds in this swirl of change, either. We remember our beloved persons or pets who are gone and the sadness begins again. The recollection of the past, with all of our family sitting together during the holidays or our pets curled up in our laps, underlines the vacuum they have left as the world continues on its inexorable path of transmutation.
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An so Buddha told us not to be in denial about this. If we don’t face it, we will be in a constant scramble of trying to keep things the same. And we will always be uncomfortable. We will go through life kicking and screaming over things that are not in our control. We will try to cling, but it will all slip out of our hands. Therefore, we must let it go, let it be the change that is a constant, and follow the Buddha’s suggestions in his Four Noble Truths and The Noble Eightfold path. He gave us a to get out of our misery. If we really adhere to what he presents, we will find a way out of this endless suffering due to clinging to what is constantly changing.
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Is it possible to be very intelligent but not spiritually advanced or enlightened?

3/9/2023

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Intelligence has nothing to do with spiritual enlightenment. Intelligence depends on the thinking mind, which is like a radar system that ensures our survival. As such, it can be frequently alarmed and live in agitation and fear. Spiritual enlightenment does not depend on the mind, logic, or advanced intelligence. It comes from the heart and gut center and not the head.
We have many different kinds of intelligence, which may be debatable:
  • Logical-mathematical
  • Linguistic
  • Spatial
  • Musical
  • Bodily
  • Emotional
  • Naturalistic
Our logical-mathematical and linguistic forms of intelligence allow us to communicate our path to enlightenment when we have found it. They also enable us to read books that point the way. But those books are just one way to “get there.” If you can’t read, or even have a below-average IQ, you can still feel at one with the underlying energy flow of the Universe. You may feel it in your bones or through your emotions. Or you may feel the creative forces of nature running through your body.

Sometimes intelligence stands in the way of understanding Source Energy. It wants to dissect, analyze, and prove itself right. It is looking for all the flaws so it can dominate them and protect itself. Very intelligent people can torture themselves endlessly over everything that could go wrong, from cosmic explosions to atomic meltdowns and entropy in interpersonal relationships . Intellectually understanding all the possible consequences of every action can lead to paralysis and incapacitating anxiety.
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Spiritual enlightenment is a state of inner peace. It is not the mind racing around trying to solve every problem in the world or even every personal issue. And there are many paths to this peace. The intellect is not usually one of them. Yet the Stoics and other philosophers are able to use logic to arrive at a sense of resignation to what is, combined with a zest for being alive. However, in general, it is not the head, but the heart that opens the gates to enlightenment.
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What is your opinion of Baghwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho)? Do you think he was a real spiritual leader or simply a psychological trickster? What is your personal experience with him/it?

3/2/2023

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I was in India when Rajneesh, or Osho, was ordered to leave. The government had opened investigations into multiple allegations of criminal behavior in connection to Osho. These included charges related to Osho-sanctioned prostitution, international drug trafficking, gold smuggling, money laundering, and tax evasion. It affected me because I had loved his earlier writings and felt he was pandering to the undisciplined party atmosphere Americans and some Europeans desired.

Ordered by the government, Osho had to pay back taxes, a major blow to his reputation that greatly angered the Rajneeshees. In 1981, the year he left for Oregon from India, more criminality took place. Referred to as one of the most terrible cases of a bio-terrorism attack in America, Osho’s followers reportedly poisoned half Wasco’s county’s voters (in an attempt to take over the county) by pouring or spraying Salmonella-tainted liquid on salad bars of ten popular restaurants. A total of 751 people were affected by the poisoning and hospital beds were full of patients in critical condition.

Obviously, there is nothing spiritual about killing people, or trying to kill people for the sake of power. Also, Osho’s goal of having 365 Rolls Royces for every day of the year did not denote a life of simplicity in the guru lineage. Furthermore, Osho’s ruthless deputy Sheela attempted to have his physician, Dr. Andrews, killed, ordering an accomplice to poison him with a shot of adrenaline to the buttocks. By this time, Osho was a regular Nitrous Oxide user (administered by Dr. Andrews) and it wouldn’t have looked good if word got out about this addiction.

Finally, for spiritual enlightenment or awakening, we don’t need to go into extended periods of ecstatic dance and indiscriminate sex to get there. This appealed to Americans, who wanted to party hearty and still have the trappings of spirtuality. Osho’s theory is that we must overcome our inhibitions to get into the deeper layers of our consciousness. But sitting quietly and centering on the Higher Self through conscious breathing is a much more effective method and truer to the yogic path. All that sweaty dancing around and orgiastic behavior may be fun, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with understanding the non-dual aspects of the Universe.

Hatred, killing, poisoning, and sexual exploitation are the paths to chaos, not to any kind of spiritual realization. At one time Osho spoke beautifully of love and I admired his way of expressing eternal truths.

“Love is a spiritual experience – nothing to do with sexes and nothing to do with bodies, but something to do with the innermost being.”

“I teach you to be more conscious. And love will come as you become more conscious: it is a guest that comes, that comes inevitably to those who are ready and prepared to receive it.”
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But somewhere along the line, he got twisted, as so many “gurus” have. It then became all about ego, greed, power, sexual exploitation, addiction, and destruction. Osho’s ego-mind overcame and counterbalanced all the good he brought to the spirit-based life he had passionately proposed in his early practice.
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Is it necessary to get rid of desire for enlightenment?

2/28/2023

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The Buddha pinpointed that the cause of all suffering is desire. To rid ourselves of suffering we must give up desire. We need to give up this kind of desire because desire is always for something that is not here. It is in the future. And while we are striving after the future and thinking that our salvation and happiness resides in it, we cannot fully appreciate the present moment. Desire is always for something else. We can’t desire it if we already know we have it.

Yet, it is not in human nature to give up desire. Desire is the intention that has fueled great inventions and works of art. Desire has spurred all intellectual and spiritual growth. We want something better. We want to be better. We want to feel better. And we desire to feel secure in the future. Therefore we take action to accomplish our desires.

In this sense, desire is just part of the Big Picture of constant transformation, expansion, and growth. We don’t need to give it up, because it is built into the system of being human. We only need to give up our attachment to the outcome of our desires. Things may not turn out exactly the way we desired and we cannot control that. Therefore, we suffer and the present moment is something we’ve got to muddle through until our next desires impel us to act.

For example, we want to have a fun-filled family picnic. Then it rains, the flies come out and bite us, the ants consume the food, and the car gets stuck in the mud. We can either suffer through this because our desires were not fulfilled, or we can accept that life is full of surprises and have fun dancing in the rain. Our desire to control the outcome of our actions in a mysterious world is what causes so much psychological suffering.

As we begin to recognize that the results of our desires may not always produce what we were hoping for, we gain emotional maturity. We are able to cope with whatever life manifests and even welcome it. “Bring it on. I want such-and-such, but the Universe, in it’s infinite wisdom, has produced something else. Let me welcome this gift.” Desire is a great springboard into the future but contains the element of dissatisfaction that a keeps us looking for more, and more, and more.
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And so, desires are not something to get rid of, but rather intentions that are to be put in their place. It’s great if things work out the way we wanted. Yet we are willing to accept whatever happens and not feel we can control everything through just wanting the results we crave. They dissolve all by themselves as an instrument of suffering and become simply the energy of intention.
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    As a spiritual guide, healer, and lecturer, I have had the privilege to touch the lives of people who long to understand their higher selves. Please leave questions and comments for me. Hope to see you often here!

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