Happy New Year—I would imagine that each of you would have to agree with me that life is an ‘interesting’ journey. And I would hope that you would also agree that spiritual evolvement and enlightenment takes work - as well does the awakening to truth from the sleeping state of materialistic reality.

The perennial philosophy views ultimate reality (God, the Great Mystery, etc.) as an oneness or a state of unity that human beings may achieve as conscious beings. And that unity is achievable due to the spiritual truth that the divine spark of ultimate reality resides within each human being or as I say each divine human being. Our purpose then in life is to strive towards and seek this oneness. This symbolically is referred to as the marriage of our male essence and female essence within or from a more linear prospective, the fusion or bridging of the right and left hemispheres of the brain resulting in a consciousness that sees and views and perceives only unity or oneness of existence – there becomes no separation, you have finally escaped the illusion and the deluded state of ego centeredness.

There you have the adventure of life. The adventure comes from the journey that you must take through the dualistic existence of earthly life – the dark and the light and the true reality of the unity of dark and light – the darkness of lovelight.

Systems have been developed over the millennium to assist and to guide humans in their personal adventurous journey of soul evolution. However, guidance and support is needed as the journey of spiritual evolution and enlightenment is not easy. Depending on the Planetary Evolutionary Age, a spiritual pilgrim may find the going easy or difficult with various gradients of ease and hindrance occurring. During the transitional times of the change of Ages, the trail is always more difficult. And the cusp time before entering into a Golden Age is always most difficult. And this is where we find ourselves today, incarnated within this most difficult of birthing Ages.

During my time as a martial artist, a spiritual artist and a wellness professional, the training to achieve levels of mastery required me to endure much training as well as a level of dedication and persistence to keep going – there was no one forcing me to get up at 2 AM on a February morning in Maine and drive to a snow and ice covered stream in sub-zero temperatures to go bathing as part of my spiritual training routine. And not just once, but over and over again.

Just as a seed of a rose endures the trials and tribulations of developing into a beautiful flower - even though it is destined to wilt and die, but then, most possibly, it may be re-born as a tall cedar - our achievement and striving towards enlightenment is no different that the journey of a rose – it doesn’t happen automatically for us, we have to do the work… the work will not be done for us. And the work is the ‘great work’ of gardening within – working with the parched soil of one’s self to bring in the harvest and the blossoming of one’s soul. This aspect of inner work flies in the face of what some organized religions endorse as dogma—have faith and you will be saved. And it is contrary to what some new age people are promoting such as a frequency shift—Indigo to Crystal shift or instant mastership as in Reiki.

How many of you have not really wanted to go, for instance, to yoga or a martial arts class. Or have resisted some form of spiritual training and purification such as the practice of bathing that I mentioned above. But you still did it and once you did, you felt a great release, accomplishment and pleasure from having done it. And your life, at least in the short term - possibly only minutes - revealed a mantle of ecstasy that you felt in ever pore of your being. So where is the ecstasy, if the work is done for you? 

To promote an easy path, instant masterships and institutions and frequency shifts that will do the work for you is an insult to all the ones, past and present, that have sacrificed, endured and suffered to accumulate spiritual knowledge and power to become more loving and peaceful divine human beings.

Be discerning in what you read or hear. The same ones preaching the Indigo to Crystal shift will attempt to “prove” this nonsense by stating the obvious as proof that the person is in the “shift.”

This could take the form of telling a person that they are undergoing the “shift” because they feel exhausted all the time, and just want to sleep.

How many of you does this describe? Well, in my mind there is another explanation. If you were to do a survey about the fatigue, tiredness, etc. probably as many as 8 out of 10 people surveyed today would answer yes. This does not have anything to do with some otherworldly swift of frequencies; it is due to the world that we live in – the stress, the fear and the environmental conditions that are so toxic to all beings on this planet. It is worst than most people realize. And each moment, it is getting even more toxic.

So what can you do? Keep doing your spiritual work; no one else or thing is going to do it for you. And as the rose, keep working towards your own personal blooming of the beauty that is truly your souls vibration.