How to reclaim your heart.
Part 3 of 3
The dragon must die but to vanquish it, it must be lured from the cave into the light. All this drama of heroes, damsels, dragons, heart, and self, courage, and fear is the stuff our our daily life on Earth. Applying the archetypes only facilitates in understanding the active energy of these forces as they motivate or limit us from within, and as they attract external circumstances and relationships to perpetuate and feed the momentum of self deception – the dragon.
We can all relate to the interplay of these forces in our personal evolution. Whether we are born onto the sunny coast of California or the broken streets of Beirut, our personal story unfolds and undulates in response to internal and external influences. We are reactive or proactive and as we strengthen within the forces without are mitigated. So the dragon we slay is the force of limitation on our personal evolution. And what exactly are we limiting? What is our personal evolution? And how does that impact on the world we live in?
My own learning began with a quest. It was a quest to avoid pain and suffering and to live without fear. I wasn’t even thinking in terms of happiness, creativity and personal fulfillment in those days. I just wanted to come up to a base line. The actual circumstances are immaterial, as the relevance lies only in the cumulative affect on my psyche and the ultimate claim for release. I did not want to be another statistic in my family of depression or suicide or penitent to a moralistic belief. And I certainly didn’t want that kind of influence on the children I was bringing into this turbulent world.
Consequently, I have been a passionate student of all ways of healing. Spiritual, energetic, nutritional, physical and intellectual. My own search for answers and the subsequent trip of healing, through tragedy, betrayal and disillusionment into lightness, comprehension, and reverence is the foundation of my vision of LightBeam and all aspects of my life work and contribution.
I was a seeker for many years until I began to study the ancient teachings of Patanjali and the Bhagavad Gita. They were very obscure to me and my Western mind had great trouble in interpreting the texts. However, my most beloved teacher, Gita, assured us that if we followed the lessons in our own time and did not rush, understanding would come. She also made a very portentous observation. She said, “Just be aware that when you study sacred texts, your life will draw in the circumstances to illustrate the lessons.”
That has been absolutely true and the way – though rough – has been resplendent with growing awareness for the subtle and sublime Life force that imbues every creature, rock and star in this wide universe. The more my understanding expanded, the less division there was in this way or that way. This doctrine or that dogma. Life began to express itself in a sense of extreme individuality and uniqueness – no two snowflakes alike – and at the same time, the amazing unity and interdependence of all living systems – molecules or galaxies. I found confidence in my own voice humming my tune and delight in the collective voice of all who wished to sing along with me.
I began to use the mantra, “I create the world I want to live in and it is populated with people I love and respect.” This is indeed unfolding and that world is pretty small but it is vibrant and full of colour, laughter, friendship, creativity and accomplishment. I’ve lost my way a few times, but as I described in The Dragon Dies and Dragon’s Teeth, those missteps become more quickly evident and corrected to bring me back to peace and confidence.
In this world of instant everything, we tend to believe that we can read a book, take a course, visualize or will a state into existence. We can most certainly be transformed by any of these. But the act of personal evolution is a lifetime of awakenings and glimpses of all that we can be. We then experience this awareness on all levels – body, mind, emotion, soul and then anchor it into our consciousness. It is in this deep integration of healing on all levels that we truly affect the the world we live in.
Our life purpose is to fulfill our own soul destiny. In this way we are truly co-contributors of Life’s evolution. We are the very cells of Life’s creative body. As we take in information, process it and express it in our daily lives, we construct a world of deeper understanding, interdependence and interconnectedness. We are manifestations of the Nature and the natural order of Life as surely as the trees and galaxies. The difference – as far as we know at this moment in time, is that we are conscious and can exert our conscious will over our actions and processes.
While the natural world expands and evolves, ebbs and flows, rises and falls on an ever undulating course, we conscious beings effect the expanding consciousness of the world. The collective emotion; the evolution of happiness over despair, peace over war, care over abuse. It is not difficult to see that the world is in chaos. There is starvation, torture, war, decimation, pollution, greed, anguish, suffering. The dragon of our collective unconsciousness is wreaking havoc. It’s is breathing poison into our water, ash into our air, starving our children, and singeing all our necks with the terror of uncertainty.
There is so much that people should be doing, could be doing to shift all this. Global prayer vigils, exhortations to God, blogs by the trillions, political and social activism. But all this activity – passive and aggressive – misses the whole point. The dragon grows in strength and power, not because we are focussing our attention and giving it energy, but because the dragon in our outer world is only the distraction for the dragon within us. The little dragon that would be safe stays safe because we ignore it to focus on the wrongs of the outer world. As long as we stay focussed on the evil, greedy conniving ‘bastards’ of the – name it – banks, pharmaceutical companies, governments, fishing fleets, fur traders, de foresters, munitions producers, we are neatly caught in the net of self delusion.
In turn, the collective consciousness is displayed in the world around us. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t like to live somewhere beautiful – a beach, the mountains, surrounded by love, and enjoying creative peace and serenity. We look at the world and wonder who made this mess? Clearly it is not our choice but here it is. The dragon of war, pollution, genocide, disease and poverty feeds on our collective delusion, our collective collusion to blame others, and it gets fat on our collective doubt and uncertainty.
In the acorn is the entire imprint for the oak. Given the basic conditions of clean water, fresh air, and nutrients from the Earth, the oak will flourish. Within the acorn is all the oak can potentially achieve. Drought and lightning may alter its shape, but within it remains all it might be. Likewise within us is all that we might be. If we are to be a musician, we will hear or see music and be drawn to its expression. Being human, our expression of our complete potential is not only effected by environment conditions, but also by conditions of consciousness.
As Life’s expression of conscious evolution, we are given the added ingredient of will. We don’t automatically evolve to the highest expression of our personal self. We must choose to fulfill our highest potential. Enter the dragon. The dragon is all that is not true about us. Before it outgrows the boundaries of our soul and leaps into the arena of the collective conscious, it feeds and gets powerful on self doubt. And how are we relieved of self doubt? By calling it out and looking it right in the eye. When we have the courage to face our fears – and sometimes we need help – we will see that they are not based on fact, but on false beliefs which have grown out of control and choke our potential for a creative, healthy and prosperous life.
Peace and love are our natural state of being, they are the stuff of our heart’s desire. They are always there – within. Sometimes deep in the cave – behind the fearsome dragon. Call the dragon out, see the lies in its eyes of what you believe about yourself that is not true and then raise the daggers of all your talents, gifts, and goodness of who you really are and slay it now. Each time the voice within you breathes the fire of doubt, shame, guilt, unworthiness face it down with another truth. Keep doing it until the dragon is silent. Then – puff! The dragon becomes magical and when it rises – and it will – it will be your ally – your reminder of who you really are!
When your heart is finally free from bondage, peace and love will fill you to overflowing and then the pulse of the world will change at last.
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Wow, thats a very crazy article for me. I like your website. Maybe you should write more articles of these type. =)
Thanks Brock! Life’s an adventure – right?