Empowerment

We Are All Related

/ Iam Saums / Leave a comment

The Perfect Illusion:
One of the greatest lies ever invented in our society is that we are separate and alone.  Though we live in a world with billions of people, we tend to accept this belief.  In doing so, we engender and even enable a reality of separatism and loneliness.  We may believe that this is what gives us our strength, our purpose and will lead to our destiny.  We allow ourselves to become devoted to this belief, even with our spouses, our children and our family.

Such is the paradigm of the “reality” in which we have been programmed and conditioned to live our lives.  It is the realism of life that has become more of an oppression and less of a liberty.  We have become dependent upon the very lifestyle many of us condemn.  Sure, we may wake up once in a while make some noise in our frustrations of how things are and how we don’t seem to have any control over them.  Yet, after the anger and upset subsides and the daily distractions kick in, we search for the artificial security blanket that our authoritarian society is more than eager to provide.

We hand over our personal power because we simply do not know what to do with it or how to be it.  We are terrified at the notion of experiencing it, let alone living it.  We entrust it to people, organizations and things that we believe (hope and pray) will protect and provide for us.  All the while running a racket of self-distraction with our denial, egotism and our self-imposed victimization.  These are the delusions of our daily experience.  The most effective illusions are the ones we accept and adopt as our way of life which inevitably becomes our reality.

Soul Schism:
The truth is we don’t trust ourselves with our personal power, let alone acknowledge its existence.  We struggle to begin to understand what our true possibility is as a human being.  We fumble around in the shadows of ourselves we enable with our apathy, self-righteousness and cognitive dissonance.  This is sustained by our conditioned social “intelligence” and our sensual desires.  We search for the vital elements of ourselves while we spend the majority of our time burying them either consciously or unconsciously to avoid being responsible for our lives.  We have made integrity and accountability our personal demons.  Our distrust, insecurity and fear have alienated us from our souls.

We become imprisoned in this world.  We allow ourselves to be drawn away from our heart and our soul and captive to our mind and our body.  This is the “Soul Schism” and it is occurring everyday in every moment with every breath we take.  Our current society does not promote or support practices and lifestyles that sustain our relations with our souls.

Many religions teach us we are unworthy in the eyes of God.  Education conditions us to conform to the intellect.  Authority figures enforce us to obey and acquiesce under fear of penalty and loss of freedom.  Entertainment hypnotizes us, when we are lost in the shadows of the life expressions of others.  These influences ultimately seduce us away from our hearts, our dreams, our creative abilities, our purpose and our destiny.  We gradually succumb to worry, insecurity, uncertainty, the pressure from our peers and the distraction of society’s structures.  This is evidenced by our lack of trust and confidence in ourselves and our lives.  We willingly sacrifice our relation with our soul and its expression for fear we won’t survive, succeed or belong.

“Where the darkness uses manipulation, the light creates inspiration.
We know we are projecting darkness when we believe we are alone.
We experience the light when we realize we are one with all.”

The Threshold of the Soul:
We have been taught to live contrary to our souls.  We have been conditioned to believe that spiritual living is equal to daydreaming or fantasizing.  Our natural expression as spiritual beings has been cleverly discredited, regulated and in many cases prohibited.  It does not fit into the standard of society’s “reality.”  This widens the chasm between our selves and our souls.

It can be terrifying to begin to unravel the enigma of ourselves from the influences and impressions of our family, friends and society.  It is equally frightening to acknowledge the unique and beautiful aspects of our selves we have willingly surrendered or distorted during our process of maturity and integration into society.

There is no greater feeling in life than being related with others.  Of course, before we can experience this union, we must first be connected with ourselves.  To some degree, we are all acquainted with ourselves.  However when it comes to knowing ourselves beyond recalling our personal history, likes and dislikes, positives and negatives and what motivates us, we may find we have distant friends and relatives we know better than ourselves.  We discover that we don’t really know who we are, what our truest expression is and what is our purpose and destiny.

Reunion:
It is extraordinary how our life thrives when we are present.  All of the answers to every question we have ever asked about ourselves are simply an expression of our realized authenticity and integrity.  When we are truly experiencing our life, we gain the necessary insights we require to expand our awareness and transform ourselves.  In doing so, we relate very powerfully with our soul and the universe.  The measurement of our relation with our soul is in the quality of the expression of our consciousness.

When we are connected with our soul, we are able to see the invisible barriers and boundaries within ourselves which keep us from becoming who we are meant to be.  We attract into our lives people whom are reflections for us to witness what it is about ourselves we are missing when we are unable or unwilling to see it within ourselves.  It is usually the characteristics or behaviors in other people that aggravate us the most.  When we are willing to acknowledge and accept this truth about ourselves, we can choose to perceive our relations as expressions of ourselves that lead to our personal freedom and power.

The greatest gift we will ever receive in our life is the wisdom that everyone whom is a part of it reveals insights to the mystery of who we are.  When we are struggling or challenged by the people or circumstances in our lives, we can choose to recognize it as an opportunity to identify the obstacles within ourselves we can transcend. What better way to expose our limitations than through the expressions of those closest to us.  What more powerful way to relate with others, ourselves and our souls than through uniting and belonging.

The truth is we can never authentically feel like we belong with others until we accept and embrace belonging with ourselves.  This may be the most difficult work to which we will ever commit.  However, when we establish the relation with our soul and become expressions of the universe, we transcend the boundaries of society and experience life as we were truly destined.  It is in our presence of being and being present to all.  We relate with all because we are in everything and everything we experience in life is in us.

We are all related.

Related

http://www.zengardner.com/related/

The Light in the Darkness

/ Iam Saums / Leave a comment

Into Shadow:

Millions of people around the world believe in evil as depicted in many ancient texts.  Human acceptance of what is portrayed as such is significantly why it exists in grand fashion.  It is very difficult to prove that it does without a shadow of a doubt.  It is more challenging to present or even discuss it without it becoming a debate about religion.  As contrary as they are, it is interesting how linked the light and the darkness appear to be historically and in contemporary times.  They are eternally bound to each other by belief, interpretation, exploitation and fear.  This imposed duality of common opinion has enslaved human kind since the dawn of time.

It is startling how human beings rarely if ever achieve a lasting enlightenment.  We may catch a glimpse of illumination, yet it is a fleeting epiphany that fades as the speeding luminosity of a falling star.  It is lost and forgotten amidst the relentless shower of diversions our society provides.  We allow the distractions to consume the quality and power of our lives.  We surrender to our personalized confusion with our lack of interest in creating them.  This is the ultimate darkness.  Not one that waits for its perfect moment to influence, command, embezzle and seize our energy.  It is one that we enable with our attitude, behavior, entitlement and emotional drama.  We sustain our own darkness with the conditions and restrictions we apply to our lives.  Our darkness is the measure of our human potential unattained and unexpressed.

Soul Persuasion:

We have been conditioned to live almost exclusively from our mind and body.  We exist within a social paradigm commonly adopted as “reality,” primarily steeped in left-brain activity and interaction.  Much as the fish that swims in water not seeing the limitations of its existence, we too are chained to the invisible boundaries of a manufactured lifestyle.  This is one way we align ourselves with negative energy.  We allow the darkness into our lives with our silence, selfishness, disinterest and the anesthetizing of our sensibilities.  We become vulnerable to the chaotic, lower frequencies we tend to perceive as “evil.”  These dark forces attempt to transmute our energetic signatures into a form easier to control, conquer and consume.

We witness the evidence of evil in society on a daily basis.  It is reflected in human behavior with war, destruction, genocide, inequality and injustice.  Darkness thrives in the malevolence of murder, rape, domestic violence, character assassination and the tradition of competition found primarily in politics, business and sports.  These attributes of human existence run rampant around the globe.  They bombard us with such frequency, impact and effect that we become desensitized to their horrors.  Yet, evil is not the monster under the bed or the demon in the darkness.  It is not an existential entity that preys upon our apathy, unconsciousness and fear.  It is we who sacrifice our personal power by the quality of our thoughts, behaviors, actions and emotional and energetic expression.  These traits expose us to negative energies that become hate, anger, vengeance, selfishness and cruelty.  Eventually, we render ourselves susceptible to these dark influences and they become our nature.  We become a conduit of darkness.

Bittersweet Truth Speak:

Our darkness does not appear to us typically as mythical, legendary, religious or commercial.  It is never as it is portrayed in a movie, a television program, a book or even a sacred text.  Our darkness is a customized expression of our being.  It is a reflection of who we are, unrivaled and unfounded within humanity and its communities to which we belong.  The generalizations of human darkness may seem similar, yet the specific qualities each of us conveys are as diverse as night and day.  There are over six billion people in the world with different perspectives, personalities and lifestyles and over six billion potential expressions of darkness.  It is only when we recognize our own contribution to the evil in the world that we may begin to transform its existence and impact.

We are not born to be dark or light.  We are brought into this world with all potential and possibility.  How we live and who we are is a state of being we gradually acquire with our chosen lifestyle, whether we are a shadow of darkness or an emanation of light.  As much as we would like to believe we are victims of circumstance, condition, reality or society, we are not.  This is the lie we tell ourselves when we are unwilling to find the strength and courage to take responsibility for our thoughts, choices and actions.  The more we surrender our personal power, the more we can be influenced and the more our darkness controls the course and expression of our lives.  When we acquiesce to our seductive tendency toward darkness and the false power and pleasure it provides, we yield our connection with one that is true.

The Light in the Darkness:

Darkness is so clever; it uses our own effort, energy and life force against us to further its agenda.  It exploits our ego as a channel to silently and constantly influence us toward choices and actions that go against our reason, free will, common sense and intuition.  The more we are aware of our darkness and its impression upon us, the more we are able to utilize it instead of the contrary.  After all, it is a powerful facet of our being.  It is ever present, no matter how much we attempt to avoid or deny its existence.  We can transform this expression of our being into a positive force that benefits our lives.  It is simply our perceptual fear of the raw, unknown power of our darkness that intimidates, weakens and immobilizes us.  We hand our power over to what may be, not what is.  With every fearful breath we draw, our connection with darkness strengthens and the fulfillment of our destiny wanes.

We are incapable of sustaining a capacity of being-ness for enlightenment.  Our lives are lived ever striving to become something that we can only be in spirit.  Perhaps this is the great mystery of life.  It has been said that the most powerful light is harvested from the greatest darkness.  Within this darkness there is only one thing that awaits us, our fear with which we react to the unknown.  Fear is the demon we all must face.  When we do, what once looked like a monster suddenly becomes a masterpiece of being when we see it for what it really is.  An illusion of existential authority enabled subconsciously by the power of our own fear.  It is an opportunity to draw strength from the deepest recesses of our being.  The meaning of life isn’t to become enlightened.  It is to free ourselves from the devices of our own darkness.  It is to face and transform the only darkness that truly exists, our own.

http://www.zengardner.com/light-darkness/

Guise of Divinity

/ Iam Saums / Leave a comment

“God is a concept, by which we measure our pain.” – John Lennon

Manufactured Divinity

We are all powerful, all potential and all possibility.  We are organic beings that produce energy rivaled only by the Sun and artificial invention.  We are descendents of the light of all creation.  Our hearts are electromagnetic energy generators that not only emit life force, yet connect us to everyone and everything that expresses life.  We are made from the same chemical compounds that are found throughout the galaxy and beyond.  We have the potential to transform any behavior pattern, thought and hereditary trait we may experience.  We have the capacity to create life and we possess the ability to take it away.

Yet, with all of the possibility we express, we have a tendency to become spellbound by our own belief.  With our reverence, we tend to hand over our personal power to a human invented supreme being presented as greater than ourselves.  Gradually we succumb to this “conditioning of the soul” and fall in line with common faith, otherwise known as religion.  We become dependent upon this invisible and imaginary force that, in some form or other, assumes the commonly accepted countenance of God.

We see this representation of divinity in so many people, in so many things and in so many ways within the numerous cultures across the world.  We not only begin to accept these rituals of belief, we take them, for lack of a better word, as Gospel.  We believe to the extent that we have trust in the doctrines and practices more so than we have confidence in ourselves or our family and friends.  The focus of our devotion toward our selected deity grows as our investment in our lives and in ourselves wanes.  We are diverted from our souls and into the arms of a social myth endorsed as “God.”

Edging God Out

The terminology and definition of “God” is a human invention to prevent us from connecting with and expressing our own spirituality.  When we explore this concept further, we find that the common interpretation humanity has adopted of God is only its perception.  At one point in history, a group of men had the idea to devise something that would allow them to be the “middle men” between God as they presented “Him” and the people.  They witnessed the blind and rapturous devotion the people expressed in their exaltation of the almighty focus of their faith.  They monopolized on it in the name of finance, politics, control, power and spiritual supremacy and segregation.

The agenda and strategy most religious organizations impose within their doctrines is becoming more apparent in our contemporary society.  Through the conditioning of the sacrament in many forms of faith, what seems to be missing is the connection that the devotee has with their chosen almighty.  It is interesting to witness the superiority of the “testimony” of those who are in a position of faith when they express it to their fellowships.  It would seem that the lessons being shared with their congregations dictate more of a principle for following belief rather than learning how to establish and maintain a union with their own spirit.

Our dependence upon a power distinct from our own has altered us to the roots of our being.  This reliance has built a barrier between our souls and us.  It has isolated us from our potential, possibility and personal power.  Our denial, unwillingness and fear have separated us from our relatedness with the natural flow of the universe.  We have enabled the publicity of God with our blind faith and hope instead of experiencing its fulfillment by establishing our own connection with our spirit and living our truth.  We subscribe to follow the ministers of belief and sacrifice our choice to lead our own way.  Where we once stood with consciousness, we now kneel at the altar of acquiescence.

The Voice and The Echo

If God is beyond our understanding, how could we ever recognize let alone understand the truth of its existence?  How could we ever hope to relate with something so superior to our consciousness?  Why are we expected to believe in one perception yet condone another?  How can we distinguish between that which is God and that which is merely a reflection proselytized by a representative of faith?  Why are we so hungry to believe in hope and faith yet eventually dismiss it to the peer pressures of our society’s “reality?”

There is a vast difference between God as we may experience it and its perceptual depiction.  There is no one in the world that has the authority, let alone the ability to accurately quantify, identify and articulate what God is, or what it is not.  Beyond all the meaning that humanity has attached to God, it is simply a word consisting of three letters.  It could be said that our own belief, energy, devotion and loyalty are the very elements that have given the concept of God its power.  It is our denial, fear and unwillingness to acknowledge, adopt and accept our potential for spirituality that has made the assumed existence of God all-powerful.

It is not God that has reaped the harvest of the critical mass of human belief.  It is those who have placed themselves between us and our connection with our souls.  It is human kind.  It could be said that God doesn’t need belief.  If God created everything, why would he need our faith or reverence?  Why would he need anything of us at all?  If the purpose of life as we learn in living it is to honor, keep and share it, why would we choose to dedicate a great deal of it looking outside of ourselves for what can only be found within?

Guide Of Divinity

We sense only a fraction of all that exists in the universe.  We experience life and the world through our own perceptual filter we have established in our lives.   We can begin to acknowledge that everything we have ever experienced of God is only that which we have learned or can relate to within ourselves.  It could be said that there is little difference between God and a human being.  We can create.  We can destroy.  We can express righteousness.  We can cast judgment.  We can bless others with our love and we can curse then with our hate (fear).

Who we are going to be and how we benefit others as well as ourselves is what makes us divine.  We are only human when we believe that is all we are.  As powerful as we believe God to be, we are as well.  When we let go of the stigmata of being human, we can accept the ultimate truth.  We are the guides of our own spirituality.  We are all of which we look to God.  We are the manifestation of God.

We are the emanation of life.

http://www.zengardner.com/guise-divinity/

A Vision of Truth

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The Incorporation of the Self

There are events in our lives that incite personal uprisings within us.  No matter how calm, quiet or peaceful we may be, in less than a breath we can become ablaze with upset, frustration and rage.  Something else happens in those moments when we come alive.  We are inspired, motivated, empowered and called into action and, most importantly, being.

These are the moments that make the greatest difference in our lives.  It is in the possibility of the present when we are able to acknowledge the true potential we are and can express when we choose.  The choice is simple.  We can succumb to the traditional conditioning of the fear we encounter through our distress and confusion.  Or we can transcend the self-induced boundaries of our being and embrace what has always been present for us to claim.  Our humanity.

Throughout our lives, we are energetically attacked mentally, emotionally and spiritually to the extent that we begin to adopt the thoughts, words, behaviors and actions of our authoritative assailants.  Be they our parents, siblings, friends, foes, teachers, preachers, co-workers, significant others or ourselves.  It is inevitable we will begin to talk the talk, enforce our false power and act out the given role for which we settle.

Whether it is one that we are coerced into, a family tradition or whatever may seem appealing to us, rarely is it one that we create for ourselves.  So it goes, the eternal revolving merry-go-round of life that promises thrills, chills and fulfillment.  Yet rarely, if ever, delivers.  Eventually, we begin to devise an artificial enlightenment.  It is developed from the weight we throw around, our temperament, intelligence, social status, achievements and the product of all of these, our self-righteousness.

Inside Job

At the heart of our self-righteousness are our greatest insecurities we safeguard with our very life force.  We all don a brave face to survive the daily melee of age, work, family drama and social turbulence.  Our personal boundaries gradually transform from the innocence and awe of a child to the clever and cunning false personality of our adult defense, our unbridled ego.

It is the subliminal development of our ego by the educational, religious, political and popular social paradigms to which we subscribe that commands the tone of our lives.  We have a tendency to acquiesce our true power simply because we do not know how to access, let alone share it.  We are not properly prepared to identify, develop and express the power each of us has been given.

Eventually, we begin to invent appearances, perspectives and beliefs that eventually result in a lifestyle of judgment and superiority.  These opinions construct our personal, perceptual prison that exists to keep us from obtaining all that is possible in our lives.  The focus of our life experience shifts from one of the heart and soul to one of the mind and body.  It is then we surrender to adulthood and the vision of our destiny dies.

The more personal power we concede to our self-righteousness through our own ignorance and arrogance, the more its benefactor influences us.  Our ego is so clever and cunning, if left to its own agenda; we become the victim of our own being, the ghost in the machine.  Unbeknownst to us, our ego uses our self-righteousness against us to control our lives, causing our uncertainty, adversity and needless suffering.

Facing the Music

We are all in a maze.  From the richest to the poorest, the healthiest to the sickest, the compassionate to the careless and the conscious to the unaware.  No matter how much we may believe that we are not shackled to the invisible boundaries of reality, we are.  Simply believing that we aren’t is the manifestation of our soul slavery.  Our self-righteousness suspends us in our own fantasy.

Our personal mystification, romanticism and indifference capture us.  We are at the cause of this epidemic of our being.  The allure of what is not tends to divert us away from all that truly is.  Our daydream lifestyle enchants and hypnotizes us, while an imposed, man-made reality frightens, entertains and anesthetizes us into a waking sleep.  This is the Matrix.  One in which we enable with our apathy, oblivion and life force every day.

We apply numerous filters to the vision of our lives and the world.  We adopt them from others or we devise them for ourselves from our fear, hurt, vanity, defensiveness or pride.  A collapse in our being occurs.  We begin to believe that we are our filters.  In these moments, our heart and soul is confined to our mind and body.  Most of us don’t know when this happens in our lives, and the majority of us don’t even notice that it has.

The Truth of Our Lives

The tapestry of personal filters we have adopted has blinded us to the mere possibility of living our truth.  The fact that living a true life is optional in the wake of reality is the reason there is such a lack of it in our own or in society.  When introduced to the truth, often our first response is resistance, cynicism, criticism and judgment.  What is really there for us is our fear and insecurity of all that we are unaware.

The greatest aspects of ourselves to which we are unconscious are our natural desires for creativity, compassion, empowerment, leadership community and love.  These are all the cornerstones of truly being human that are rarely taught, emphasized, encouraged and practiced.  These are the only qualities that can enlighten the human race toward the greatest of its potential.

Walking our truth is lived with strife, challenge, hardship and pain.  Our true path is not as excruciating as it may appear.  Those who powerfully choose to live their truth must do so in an artificial environment.  This is the most difficult endeavor.  There are few points of reference.  There is very little relativity with those around us.  After all, it is not possible to establish our own truth based solely upon that of another.

We are living in an era when pure possibility is more accessible than ever.  A powerful movement in our society has woken and risen to identify and claim their personal power.  A new experience is emerging from the declining constitutions of what we have accepted as real.  Those whom retrieve their forgotten truth will see it.  Those who stand for their truth will express it.  Those whom live their truth will be it.

Our truth is the vision of who are meant to be.

http://www.zengardner.com/a-vision-of-truth/

The Frequency of Being

/ Iam Saums / Leave a comment

Wake:

Our lives are defined and cultivated by how present to, interactive and expressive we are with them.  The nature of our consciousness is the exact manifestation of our experience.  Yet, before we may be able to reap the benefits that awareness brings, we must first wake up to all of which we are not cognizant.  We must be willing to identify with all that we don’t know.  In fact, we need to reveal all that we don’t know we don’t know about our lives and ourselves.  We must transcend the imposition of contemporary reality and our conditioned selves to accept, embrace and live our truth.

This requires radical, unconventional thinking and instincts.  It also necessitates an enlightened emotional and intuitive way of being.  It isn’t for us to simply wake up, discover and contemplate the war, chaos, drama, injustice, competition and violence in the world.  There is little if anything we can do about this.  It is for us to acknowledge, manage and transform these characteristics within each of us that contribute to these common maladies, diseases and atrocities rampant in our society.  None of these things existed until the human race outsmarted itself with its own “intelligence.”

One of the most potent and destructive vicious cycles ever invented by humanity is its relentless tendency to expand its intelligence at the cost of its consciousness.  Our ordinary, two-dimensional life sentence of self-righteousness, condemnation, proving our intelligence, belief, wisdom and importance are all just expressions of our living slumber.  In the presence of awareness, compassion, kindness, cooperation and love, none of these things matter.  They are only traps of the mind that lead us to our self-induced prison.

Awaken:

Once we have chosen to wake up from the dream of reality, it is our human destiny to kindle the fire of our consciousness.  How we tend it and who we are being expresses the quality and fruition of our life.  We need to acknowledge and understand that being “awake” requires a true and continual intention to relate with and expand our consciousness.  Our awakening isn’t an event at one point in our lives.  It is a frequent, multi-dimensional experience that constantly inspires and empowers us beyond the limits of our social conditioning and fear.

One of the greatest obstacles and distractions on our path toward awakening is our ego.  Its militant aspects relentlessly seek to take the spotlight from our soul.  It captures us in its elaborate tapestry of thought, perception, analysis, judgment and narcissism.  Yet, its intention is not one of supremacy or maliciousness.  It is simply exercising its nature in the only way it can.  It becomes dominant when we allow it to be an unbridled force of havoc and harm.  Without appropriate observation and regulation, it becomes a multi-faceted personal weapon.

In our pursuit of comfort, security and escape from reality, we allow ourselves to become idle, complacent and ordinary.  We commit the ultimate self-crime by giving our personal power away and allowing society’s artificial authority and conditioning to lull us to sleep.  Life is not defined by our material successes, possessions or footprint.  It is lived in our awareness, willingness and purpose.  Anything that lives is always in a state of movement.  The power of our life is equivalent to the measure of its expression.  So it is with our awakening.  Our awareness is ever progressing and expanding with our intention, commitment, empowerment and love.

Rise:

There are many times in our lives when a door of opportunity is opened before us.  Yet, rarely do we see it.  When we do, we psych ourselves out using a number of reasons, excuses, obligations and fears.  These are the possibilities that create the life we have always yearned to live.  Though they may seem bold, outlandish, far-fetched and terrifying, they are glimpses of the extraordinary in a reality steeped in the ordinary.  Our opportunities are frightening because they present themselves only to us for our experience.  It simply requires us to choose, to live and to be them.  This is how we express our power.

As human beings, we rarely, if ever, rise to the occasion of our destiny.  Many of us don’t know our true purpose in life.  We are forced through a process of education, indoctrination, conditioning, parental and authoritative guidance/discipline and constant peer pressure.  These influences keep us in a continuous state of anxiety, bewilderment and fear.  We become the effect of an elusive and hidden cause.  One we witness many chasing yet only few achieving.  We are lost in the maze of reality’s distractions till we are inevitably severed from ourselves.

Every moment we live is an opportunity to be in the present.  This is not merely a religious, dogmatic or spiritual principle.  It is our only possibility to be the fullest expression of our being.  Any other way of living is a distraction from this simple yet insightful revelation.  The sooner we acknowledge, accept and apply who we are to how and why we live, the sooner we will fulfill on our destiny and become whom we were born to be.

Truth:

Most of us live our lives in the wake of our reactionary instincts, thoughts and the drama of our unconscious emotions.  This takes us out of the present moment and separates us from our consciousness.  Few are aware of the severity this inner violence has upon us and how it devastates the evolution of our lives.  Who, why and how we are being in our life inspires our awakening.  Our frequency of being is the avenue for our heart and soul’s expression.  Its energetic signature and regularity deepens and expands our vision, truth, intention, creativity, relatedness and love.

There is no textbook, course, lecture, seminar, retreat, guru, shaman, preacher, teacher, friend or family member that can guide us to or establish our personal truth.  Our truth is not offered best with our overconfidence, over-zealousness, self-righteousness, arrogance and competitiveness.  In its truest nature, it is rarely spoken.  It is best shared silently within us for the purpose of personal acceptance, growth and transformation.  Our truth is the one thing our communities and the world needs most.  Only when it becomes our way of being will it reach its fullest potential.

From the moment we are born we have millions of opportunities to wake from our reality, awaken from our perceptions and judgments, rise above our limitations and fears and establish our personal truth.  For most, the expression and frequency of being in life is optional.  This is the slavery of our soul.  It is not some external person or elusive force that prevents us from being.  It is we and we alone.  There is no one else who can lead us.  There is no one else who can free us.  Every moment is our opportunity to free our souls.  Every moment is our opportunity to be.

http://www.zengardner.com/frequency/

Awaken

/ Iam Saums / Leave a comment

“Don’t you get tired?  Aren’t you fed up?  Pushing the agenda for the higher ups.

Could you be wise?  Won’t you be free?  Living an illusion for this fantasy…”

The Viral Man:

Since the first footprint left by the earliest civilizations, mankind has always sought, fought, built and destroyed to leave its signature.  Its very existence has become an antithesis of nature.  Its mind has made it such that the natural world is something to be conquered to measure its success, progress and worth.  Generation after generation has sparred with everything it has perceived to be a threat and challenge to its survival.  Monuments have been crafted to represent the artificial power, might and wisdom mankind has stolen from nature and manipulated with its timeless arrogant desires.

The natural world and all of its mysteries, wonders, majesty and life is simply not enough in its true, raw and rugged expression to satisfy mankind’s desires.  It had to remove, dissect, deconstruct, diminish and destroy nature in order to examine and exploit it.  Nature’s resources were extracted, altered, manipulated, boiled, burned and exhausted at an astronomical rate.  Whole ecosystems were sacrificed upon the altar of mankind’s progress, convenience, industry and wealth.  It gradually placed itself in the center of the cycle of life as it imprisoned the world with its greed, selfishness and insatiable hunger.

There is one term that best symbolizes what mankind’s reality has done to the Earth, “virus.”  It is interesting how viruses seem to originate and localize around human life.  It is vital to acknowledge and accept that viruses are a product and expression of the human race.  The very nature of a virus correlates so perfectly with mankind that the two have become synonymous with each other in life and in death.  Our toxicity as a species has reached a degree to which we have become a contagion.   This infection has wiped out civilizations, ecosystems and environments with war, disease, famine and human refuse.

“Cast your chaos to the rising tide.  Time to be present to the fear inside.

Kingdoms will rise.  Kingdoms will fall.  Truth is eternal when we heed the call…”

Society of Illusions:

There is nothing more devastating to a culture than the greed that corrupts it.  We can see it everywhere in our daily lives when we choose.  Advertisements, television programs, celebrities, professional athletes, politicians and even religious and spiritual organizations fall prey to it.  The mentality of excess has woven its way into the very roots of our society.  It has polluted our compassion, good will and need with vanity, self-righteousness and want.  It is much more than just a chosen way of life for those with the means.  It has become an entitlement that costs many the quality of life for the benefit of the few.

We were all born into a life of illusion.  Even before we breached the birth canal of our mothers, the wool was pulled over our eyes.  Our development through educational, religious and social institutions further indoctrinated and assimilated us into a reality of lies.  We were harnessed at an early age with a burdened inheritance of mere survival in a society designed to continually oppose us at every turn.  The machinery of reality persistently strips us of our free thought, emotion and creative expression, as we are bombarded with the many facets of conformity.  Ultimately, the harsh conditions of living in the contemporary world condition us into a lifestyle of apathy, denial, disinterest, cynicism and acquiescence.

“Will we pretend?  Are we asleep?  Hiding in the shadows from the fears we keep.

Will we arise?  Can we amend?  All that has fallen at the hand’s of men…”

Turning the Tide:

As diabolical as mankind’s global agenda may be, it is fragile and vulnerable to downfall.  Each one of us enables the chains of our daily slavery to society and its reality.  It is a vampire that takes everything we bring to it and provides little to nothing in return.  Yet we continue to feed this monster.  We crawl through the wreckage of our broken dreams, shattered imaginations and forgotten possibilities to prove our worth to a careless and clueless society.  As we weather the storms of our lives, we retreat to the false comfort and security of our abodes seeking fulfillment from entertainment and amusement.

There is a “breakthrough” point that occurs from either being enraged or inspired.  Many that are moved by anger tend to lash out in protest and become ensnared in the trappings of our totalitarian society. When we express ourselves negatively, we will always attract an equivalent outcome.  Authoritarian figures rely upon rebellion so that they may deal with dissidents with force, inequality and injustice.  It is used as a weapon to amend and enact laws and implement social regulations and restrictions to restrain and bury human creativity, consciousness and enlightenment.  Revolutions that were once loud, chaotic and unpredictable must now be silent, gradual and focused.

Contemporary society primarily continues to do the same thing in the same way over and over again expecting a different result.  The human life experience in many ways is a lifestyle of lunacy.  Our tendency as a society is to exist in a myriad of vicious cycles that keeps us in a perpetual state of drama, confusion, indifference, irresponsibility and duplicity.  When we blindly and defiantly defend our positions, we further entrench ourselves into our social captivity.  The human prison may be engineered and maintained by a select and secret few, yet it is we who allow ourselves to be enslaved daily with our participation and our choices or lack thereof.

“Cast your darkness to the rising sun.  Time to awaken for we are the ones

Nations will rise.  Nations will fall.  Life is eternal when we live for all.”

– Iam (lyrics from my original song “Awaken.”)

Awaken:

The human race as a whole has been asleep for a good portion of its existence.  The elements of our slumber have been our perceptions, opinions, intelligence, denial, self-righteousness and selfishness.  These are the bars of our personal imprisonment.  The accumulation and development of these qualities that “mature” our personalities are the very things that prevent us from becoming who we are truly meant to be.  In our attempt to belong to the society in which we exist, we automatically and willingly surrender our personal truth, power, purpose, consciousness and amity.  We turn our backs on ourselves.

Every day is an opportunity for us to choose to live a conscious life.  The more we create this possibility, the more we establish this reality, the more human beings will contribute to the communal awareness.  This is happening now.  We need to come together to be our fullest expression of being as a global family.  This is how it is in spirit.  No one else can create, establish or contribute our expression in this universal destiny.  When we choose to live our truth, creativity, imagination, ahimsa (non-violence) and kindness, we will transform ourselves and ultimately the world.

http://www.zengardner.com/awaken-4/

Light in the Clouds

/ Iam Saums / Leave a comment

Culture of Confusion:

A global perplexity has distorted the essence of humanity’s awareness.  Its influence and impact is experienced in widespread dissonant energetic frequencies.  Generations of human beings have unconsciously cultivated an archaic, suppressive and contrary history of existence.  Confusion is used as a shield of defense against personal authenticity, accountability and understanding.  We embellish and gratify ourselves with social customs to flex our false power.  We have invented clever ways to avoid, discourage and discredit all that contests our true sensibility, possibility and purpose.

All of us adopt, emulate and project our personal confusion.  We have grown so accustomed to it that it becomes our nature, and ultimately our weapon and downfall.  Our confusion clouds our vision, perception and comprehension.  It blinds us to our truth, love and destiny.  Our focus is distorted by the contemporary enchantments of “real” life.  A myriad of distraction is designed and exists to further divert our attention toward the entitlement of our amusement.  We willingly sacrifice our personal intention and talent to conform and assimilate with society.  We hide our power for fear of claiming it.

Popular Vertigo:

It is a nameless and faceless dis-ease that has always been a human epidemic.  We learn to inherit the security blanket of our confusion to justify our excuses, indifferences, failures and fears.  It produces barriers in our personal intelligence, understanding, intent and the manifestation of our purpose.  We plague ourselves with our own cognitive dissonance from which we so desperately yearn to escape and transcend.  The lethal concoction of our apathy, disinterest, envy and self-righteousness breeds our confusion.  The source of our greatest struggles is not found from without.  We enable it within.

Our condition of confusion grows in dimension, influence and complexity.  It becomes a perception we assume that eventually alters our reason, veracity and ideology.  Our focal point is dismantled and consumed by the vortex of existence we interpret as reality.  We turn our backs on the truth of our selves so that we may invent virtual relationships with superficial people in an artificial world.  We survive calculated circumstances, which yield simulated comforts and conveniences.  This racket we run on ourselves harvests aimless ambitions and unfulfilled lives.  In essence, we die more and more, everyday.

Inherited Uncertainty: 

Confusion is not our natural state of being.  Yet it is a daily routine to which we all subscribe.  It seems much easier to immerse our selves within our perplexity rather than claim and embrace the power of our choice, expression, truth and love.  We have been programmed into a habitual state of subconscious anxiety.  In the midst of our daily occurrences, we are perpetually exposed to a myriad of toxic stimuli that distorts our perception and experience.  Our apprehension and indecisiveness predominantly causes our entitlement, expectations, unhealthy relations and egocentric desires.

We become accustomed to living our lives between what was and what may be, rarely in the present moment.  We are conditioned daily to be afraid of our opportunities, choices, abilities, lifestyle and even love.  Our first impulse is to discredit our inspiration to express ourselves as we truly can be.  Our second instinct is to dismiss and ridicule others when their opportunity for empowerment may transpire.  The third inclination is to bury our brief encounters with our destiny and enable an ordinary life to which we are held captive by our own fear.  This formula holds us in a continual state of uncertainty.

Era of Epiphany:

We are living in an extraordinary era of insight and possibility.  A great deal of awareness and wisdom is more readily available than has ever been in the history of humanity.  There is a universal flow of energy rushing into the three dimensional reality dismantling our two dimensional captivity.  Our greatest barriers to fourth dimensional information, comprehension and consciousness were once a handful of arrogantly elitist, ridiculously wealthy and manipulative few.  Now, we are the only ones who can suppress or prohibit the expansion of our focus, talent and intention.

Our personalities, behaviors, fears and lives are being presented to us in illuminating HD clarity.  Everything about ourselves that we have enabled to restrict us from discovering and achieving our passion and purpose is emerging for us to release.  It simply requires us to choose, practice and become who we need to be for ourselves and others.  When we are living in the rhythm of epiphany, service and humility, we embrace all the truth, light and love that are eternally available to us.  This creates the opportunity for us to emanate the energy of creativity, insight and empowerment.

Moment of Clarity:

The confusion we allow and enable in our lives is our greatest obstacle.  It is the source of our worries, challenges, failures, divisions and fears.  We aren’t even present to most of the confusion we experience.  It is what we don’t know we don’t know about ourselves and our lives that confounds us.  The only time we are remotely aware of it is when we are confronted by adversity.  It is a conscious choice to observe what none of us really wants to see about ourselves.  We are able to transform our confusion into clarity when we embrace the truth that we alone hold ourselves back from truly living life.

Our personal power can only be claimed and expressed upon a foundation of authenticity and integrity.  This is the sacred design of universal being.  The achievement of our enlightenment is an eternal dance.  It is ever flowing toward and receding from us.  It simply begins with a choice.  One to which many of us may be either unaware or unwilling.  The acquisition of our consciousness and its inclusion into our daily lives is vital in the revelation, expansion and expression of our being.  It is the lucidity of our vision, choice, purpose and lifestyle that fulfills our truest destiny.

The Heart of It All:

It has been said that our energy flows where our attention goes.  Most of us are primarily unconscious of this truth.  The nature of our focus defines the reality in which we exist.  Our intent is our compass and our action is the manifestation of our true choice.  We either choose the abundant energy that is our birth rite, or we defer it to our external reality and become captive to an artificial existence.  The soul distinction that is harvested from our experience of life is our choice to embrace and share the greatest expression of our being.  This is all for which we are truly destined.

http://www.zengardner.com/light-in-the-clouds/