Esoterica

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/

Who We Are

/ Iam Saums / Leave a comment

The Fallacy of Physicality:

We are born into what most perceive a physical world.  We burst through the vaginal cavities of our mothers into a cold, cruel, complex and cutthroat reality.  When we are delivered, we possess everything we require to adapt, develop, excel, achieve, transform and thrive in life.  The moment we draw our first breath outside of the womb, we have attached ourselves to the material experience.  It is that expression of our will to live that determines our purpose, commitment and destiny.

The first twenty or more years of our lives we are processed through a vast labyrinth of information, rules, disciplines, social structures, evaluations and tests.  We experience few successes, many failures and parental, peer and authority persuasion.  With every day that passes, we yield more of who we were born to be and become more of a product of that which society conditions us to be.  We are so distracted by what is going on around us we are oblivious to the gradual death that occurs within.  We sacrifice our heart and soul in a needless pursuit for inauthentic belonging.

It is easy to be drawn into the fear, drama and reality of physical life.  The potential of pain, illness, punishment, disease and death is an ample antagonist to ensure our compliance.  Yet, no matter how “real,” dire or shocking it may be, the physical world is an illusion.  We have allowed ourselves to believe that all we see is all that is real.  We have turned our backs on the essence of the universe and ourselves by being seduced, stimulated, entertained and enslaved by our sensuality.

The House of Mirrors:

The greatest enigma in the existence of humanity is the mind.  There is nothing in our being-ness more active, complex, spellbinding, intriguing and bewildering.  From an early age we are confronted with millions of ideas, thoughts and judgments that bombard us and shape the course of our values, opinions and perceptions.  As our intelligence develops, our innocence, sense of wonder, intuition and creativity fades.  Decades of exposure to institutional information deprive us the development of our true wisdom.

There is a schism that matures in our minds during the process of our education, belief and social influence.  Our societal structures are engineered in a way to prevent and even prohibit us from connecting with others beyond our instinct and intellect.  These systems focus on the growth and programming of our left-brain so we eventually resign ourselves to a linear existence.  These methods gradually segregate us from our right brain and our natural desire and necessity to create and express.

As we mature into adulthood, we find it more difficult to experience life beyond the boundaries of our mind and body.  Our ability to feel and intuit with our heart and soul is distorted by the rigid guidelines of the common reality.  When we transcend this two-dimensional lifestyle, we relate emotionally and spiritually with others and we experience vital life epiphanies and insights.  These encounters are the breadcrumbs on our path of illumination, when we choose to acknowledge and apply them to our lives.

The Heart of the Heart:

Society has taught us that matters of the heart are a sign of weakness and a minor priority in life.  Emotionality has been attributed more to women than men.  Like the schism in our mind, this popular perception has caused a division between the sexes that has separated us not only from our relatives and significant others, yet also with ourselves.  The human race has become a de-compartmentalized species afraid of its own shadow.  Our fear of feeling has alienated us from our soul.

Our heart is the forgotten warrior of our being.  Amidst the constant demands of our body and the continual drone of our mind, its enduring and omnipotent presence centers and grounds us into a multi-dimensional existence.  Our instincts may deceive us and our intelligence may outwit us, yet our heart is our truest human quality.  Its very expression offers clarity, guidance, insight and enlightenment.  In the moments of our anger, upset, drama, confusion and fear, it reminds us who we are.

The center of our inner universe is our heart.  It is the eternal, electromagnetic core of our being, the gateway to our soul and the lightning rod of our intuition.  It is of course the most vital organ that pumps and distributes blood throughout the body.  Yet it is also what provides our body and energy field with essential life force.  It balances, sustains and expands our being.  The quality of our experience of life is dependent upon how conscious of, present to and expressive we are with this energy.

The Song of the Soul:

When we choose to transcend the trappings of the mortal world, there is a place within us all that reflects a brilliance, beauty and majesty greater than any beheld on earth.  It cannot be seen, heard, touched, tasted and barely can be felt.  It is only experienced beyond our sensory expression.  It is a feeling, yet much more.  It is in the moments when all of our senses work in concert with each other we are able to capture a mere glimpse of the absolute splendor of our soul.

Every time we close our eyes, ears and mouths we become present to our purest potential.  Our truth can only be found beyond the intimidating silence within us all.  We are related with our bodies, minds and hearts, though we are so much more than we could possibly imagine.  We may never experience the infinite heights and profound depths of our spirit until we transcend the physical world.  The influence and impact of our body’s desires, our mind’s reason and our heart’s empathy are our greatest distractions.  As inevitable and inescapable as they may seem, they are not insurmountable.

Who we are is a conduit of energy that channels the essential elements of free will, creativity, life force and love.  We are an expression of focused being with the purpose of sharing our essence with the world.  Who we are is the manifestation of everything that has ever been, is and will ever be.  We are only as powerful as we choose to be.  Who we are is the missing piece to a magnificent mystery only our true destiny may fulfill.  We are everything we have ever sought to find outside of ourselves.  Who we are is the measure of our passion to live life, affirmed by our birth and freed in our transcendence.  We are the expression of the source of all creation.

Who we are is the vision of pure being come true.

http://www.zengardner.com/who-we-are/

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/

The Greatest Illusion

/ Iam Saums / Leave a comment

“Spirituality and being spiritual mystifies us from being all who we are truly meant to be.”

Soul Distinction:

We are not spiritual. When we are attempting to be spiritual, we are not being spiritual. We may practice one or many styles of spirituality enough to consider or call ourselves “spiritual.” Yet, by our very nature in relation to the common reality and the dynamic of contemporary society, we are not. We may give the appearance or impression that we are or do, though we truly aren’t and don’t. When we present ourselves as being “spiritual,” we aren’t “being” spiritual, but more often disingenuous, eccentric and superior. When we believe we are enlightened is usually when we are furthest from it.

Living a spiritual life is publicized as something we must learn and develop; yet it is something we rarely experience or become. Whatever medium of spirituality we may believe we are performing is a characteristic of our individual interpretation. It is simply not possible for us to share the “wisdom” we may discover, adopt, reflect or convey. It is ours alone and may only work for us in our lives. There are over six billion truths, perceptions, opinions and encounters with spirituality in the world. It is narcissistic to believe that “our” understanding of spirituality is universal or “the one.”

When we choose to embrace living a lifestyle that brings us into alignment with our soul’s purpose and destiny, we begin to draw lines of distinction between what we believe our path to be and what it truly is. More often than we would like to accept, how we choose to live determines whether we are talking and proselytizing a spiritual life or walking and living it. The use of the term “spiritual” implies that those whom are intending to be it are not. Most people that seek to live a spiritual life never realize that they may be feeding their ego more than they are being an expression of their soul.

Lost in the Logic:

Relation with the spirit is a very unique experience. When we attempt to quantify our illuminations using thought and reason, we have already diluted and eventually lost their true essence. When we listen to a spiritual speaker, read a book or an article 😉 or watch a video, we aren’t receiving the entirety of the message or its wisdom. It is compromised as soon as it is translated from a four-dimensional experience into a three-dimensional reality and captured with two-dimensional logic and ideology. As soon as we attempt to speak about it we have already lost it.

Many “spiritual” leaders, gurus, shaman, ministers, priests, etc. have sought to be an intercessor for all emanations of spirit. Many members of congregations, fellowships and religious and spiritual organizations have willingly sacrificed their personal truth, power, purpose, freedom and destiny seeking outside of them that which already abides within. The pursuit of artificial belonging, comfort, convenience and common belief ultimately “converts” a revolutionary, transformational four-dimensional experience into a contrived and routine two-dimensional secular sentence.

Ritual of Rhetoric:

As central as the ritual is to one’s practice, it is not the end all be all. It may seem ideal to live a life in constant ritual, yet it is not realistic, nor is it beneficial. At some point, all of us must return to our daily lives and apply to them what we have experienced in ceremony. If the spirituality one is practicing is not proactively useful, personally innovative and progressively transformational, it can become more of a detriment than a benefit. Millions of people use rituals everyday to escape the reality to which they subscribe. Even a ceremony can distract one from the evolution of their life.

Rituals open the door and guide a person into the realms of epiphany, consciousness, appreciation, transformation and wisdom. These practices allow us to step outside of our lives and ourselves and experience something new, bold, radical and revolutionary. They allow us to relate with our heart and soul through our connection with the vision, insight and expression of our intuition. Ceremonies balance our body and mind with our heart and soul. They assist us in establishing and maintaining the sacred alchemy of our four-dimensional potential.

Participating in ceremony is essential with our intention and need to live harmonically and symbiotically with our heart and soul. The frequency of our participation and our experiences help us to discover and sustain our awareness to, relation with and expression of the creative force of the universe. This is our fullest potential which all of us are born to bring into three-dimensional reality, beyond even our imagination. This is the life force that creates the possibility of transforming ourselves, our reality, our environments and ultimately the world.

Soul Distortion:

We have been turned around so many times in our lives by the common reality and the society in which we live that we fear and resist all that we should embrace and apply. We surrender and acquiesce to that which is outside of ourselves as our celebrated contemporary lifestyle. It has become the customary way of life. We have found a false sense of security, worth, empowerment and fulfillment in being afraid of our own shadows. Throughout our lives, our fear grows to be insurmountable. It ensnares us into a perpetual state of delusion, confusion and indifference.

Eventually, we allow the social rules, obligations and havoc of our human experience to distort our intuitive vision and suppress our emotional expression. We do not truly live. We merely survive a two-dimensional existence. We attempt to compensate for the lack or loss of our heart and soul with left-brained intelligence and gratifying our insatiable, instinctual desires. We become masters of reason, opinion, duality and common sense. With every shallow breath we take in our unconscious existence, we further sever our relation with our soul.

The Illusion:

Before we are able to comprehend the necessity of our relation to and expression of our spirit in our life, it is relentlessly charmed and seized by numerous facets of society. As children, we live from our heart and soul before our bodies develop and our minds are manipulated with two-dimensional intelligence. As we “mature,” our emotions are repressed and we are alienated from our intuition. We begin to believe the truth of those around us as we inhibit and bury our own. We live so removed from our heart and soul, what we are faced with on our deathbed is our fear of the unknown we ourselves enabled.

We are programmed, conditioned, educated, emasculated and enslaved into an artificial, three-dimensional reality living a two-dimensional existence. Everything that we are told we ought to live for by our family, friends, peers, teachers, preachers, professional associates and authoritative figures is the mask of the illusion we call “life.” We drive ourselves with the initiative of acquiring more to eventually buy our freedom from the communal prison of reality. When we reach the mountaintop of “retirement,” we isolate ourselves further from the world. Our surrender is complete.

The greatest illusion ever invented by humanity was the belief that we are separate and divergent from our soul. Our society is built upon this lie to sustain this deception for the benefit of the few at the cost of the many. The common acceptance of this perception has segregated us from the extraordinary expression of who we truly are. It has condemned us to the shadows of existence from our fulfilled potential and the true purpose of our destiny. Yet it is our own fear of the pure power of our soul and our lack of loyalty to it that has suppressed and separated us from our four-dimensional experience.

We are whom we have been waiting for. We are the key that unlocks the door. This has always been the truth and purpose of our lives. This is why we are born into this artificial, three-dimensional reality and consistently challenged by a two-dimensional existence. It isn’t to sentence us to a life of fear, servitude, escapism and self-indulgence. It is to inspire and empower us to choose to transcend and transform this simulated reality. This is how we discover and declare our personal truth, power, purpose, freedom and destiny. This is how we become the soul we are meant to be.

“The greatest illusion isn’t that we are separate from each other.

The greatest illusion is that we are separate from our souls.”

– Iam

http://www.zengardner.com/the-greatest-illusion-2/

Fairy Tale

/ Iam Saums / Leave a comment

“In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself again in a dark wood,
that the straight way was utterly lost.” – Dante Alighieri  ”Inferno”

Once Upon a Time…

There is a race of beings that exist on a distant planet millions of miles from the Sun.  When they are born, their birthrights are gifts and blessings of exceptional power expressed in their acceptance, amity, compassion, creativity, kindness, transformation and above all else, love.  They are spiritual beings of light that live in symbiosis with a physical body.  All have a mind that allows them to learn, grow, expand and live their wisdom inspired by the language of the universe, consciousness.  Yet, what unites every aspect of their being-ness is something quite extraordinary, their heart.

This race of beings lived in union with each other and nature.  They learned to build shelters, hunt and harvest food, conserve resources, record their history, perform sacred ceremonies and live as a flourishing clan.  For many centuries, these beings handed down their traditions to future generations for the stewardship of the planet upon which they lived and thrived.  Though their lifestyle was extremely difficult, they were very happy, healthy, hearty and peaceful.  Every aspect of their lives was a reflection of how they lived them by who they were being.

…all of the beings…

A darker time arose in their harmonious history, an era of fear, selfishness and conflict.  As their spirituality grew, so did their egos.  The members of this clan began to doubt, worry, envy, clash and disband.  They abandoned their centuries-old traditions that had sustained their culture’s abundant, creative, dynamic and enlightened way of life.  They surrendered their benevolence, empathy, purpose and destiny to pursue a path of vanity, intelligence, selfishness, decadence and superiority.  In the span of a generation, all that was customarily true and sacred to them had been buried beneath decades of pride.

The clan became many, each with its distinct tradition, belief, ritual and lifestyle.  They spread out over the land to distance themselves from whom they had become, and whom they had once been.  Their social standards deteriorated into anger, cruelty, hatred, violence and fear.  Their well-being and life expectancy yielded to disease, viruses, illnesses, plagues and ultimately death.  The mortality rate of infants and children decimated their clans.  The loss of their youth cast a long shadow over them, as the final strands of their communities were severed by their reckless abandon.

…all across the land…

Generations of time had come and gone, lived in apprehension, hardship, hopelessness and meager survival.  This Dark Age bred lack, politics, war, crime, corruption, depravity, manipulation and obsolescence.  The once strong and virtuous clan had descended into segregated inauthenticity, inequality, injustice, and insanity.  The common lifestyle the clans now separately lived was driven by the accumulation of wealth, possessions, land and people.  Monuments and statues were erected to impose a blind loyalty, devoted dependency, firm obedience and civic arrogance.

The natural world and the planet were impacted by the mere presence and existence of the clans.  Species of animal, insect and plant life diminished into extinction.  Entire ecosystems collapsed under the escalating appetites, demands, and consumption of their entitlement to the world.  The youth that survived lived in enslavement and under the tyranny of a social system that served the illustrious few at the cost of the impoverished many.  Those whom were intent on returning to clan life as it had once been long ago were ridiculed, chastised, discredited, imprisoned or put to death.

“This mountain is so formed that it is always wearisome when one begins the ascent,
but becomes easier the higher one climbs.” – Dante Alighieri “Purgatorio”

…transcended their silence…

The clans began to delve deeper into their planet to extract more and more resources to stockpile and employ as superficial value to acquire more and more power.  When conventional means of acquisition proved unsuccessful, more aggressive actions were taken that claimed the lives of millions.  Modern technology replaced or erased healthy, peaceful and empowered lifestyles with idleness, lethargy and expectancy.  The very devices that were designed to make life easier for the clans were causing them to be ignorant, isolated, distracted, divisive and terminally ill.

Their hunger for more produced a social vortex that consumed their energy, time, experience, relations, purpose, destiny and lives. They soon became detrimental to themselves.  Their very lifestyle was killing them.  Amidst the fear, horror and tragedy they enabled with their apathy, acquiescence and participation, they had forgotten they alone created the tapestry of lunacy to which they were enslaved.  Apprehension, delusion and oblivion were the common standards that kept the clans preoccupied with the simulated fairy tale their lives had become.

…and made their stand.

A new era began and something remarkable happened.  Something quite unexpected broke the surface of the clans’ repressed awareness.  It started with a simple few and grew to a movement of many across the land.  As gradually as the ancient, sacred traditions had been replaced with artificial life, the long lost gifts and blessings their earliest ancestors once lived returned.  The true color of life that had been tainted by greed, control, indifference and fear blossomed once again.  One by one, the clans emerged from generations of obligatory obscurity.

Within the wisdom of their recovered truth, consciousness and love, the many clans discovered merit in supporting, empowering, listening to and relating with their distant kinsfolk.  They focused on the ancient, native similarities they shared with each other and shifted their intention of simply surviving into one of truly thriving.  They found their true power in the expression of their acceptance, amity, compassion, creativity, kindness and transformation.  The clan’s individual wants were exchanged with a common need only one way of being could fulfill, unity.

Epilogue:                            

Thousands of cultures around the world throughout the history of humanity have fallen prey to the vicious cycle of living a two-dimensional experience in a three-dimensional existence.  Most come and go from this world never realizing and manifesting their natural vision, truth and purpose.  The measure of our enslavement to our own personal fairy tale is a representation of our apathy, selfishness and fear.  It is quite ordinary to adopt and follow a fate that is a product of our society.  Though it is indeed extraordinary to create and live a destiny that is an expression of our love.

“…as a wheel turns smoothly, free from jars, my will and my desire were turned by love,
The love that moves the sun and the other stars.” – Dante Alighieri “Paridisio”

http://www.zengardner.com/fairy-tale/

Between the Lines

/ Iam Saums / Leave a comment

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” – Edgar Allen Poe

Artificial Reality:
Nothing is real in reality. All the intelligence, belief and wisdom in the world will not change this truth. The human race has prided itself on how many people, circumstances and outcomes it can control and manipulate to convey its synthetic power and conceal its deepest insecurities. All that shall remain of it is the watermark of its self-righteousness, insatiable appetites, veiled malice and egocentric conquests. Generations upon generations of human beings have come and gone, born with the greatest promise and buried with the greatest failure. A defeat most will not choose to acknowledge or claim.

We are not real because we simply do not live in the present. We are the most elaborate lie ever created. We are given the extraordinary opportunity to thrive by evolving, transcending and sharing all we encounter. Yet, we are constantly seduced by our ego’s incessant agenda. Our lives are truly not about helping others. They aren’t even about helping our families or ourselves. They are about enabling an elusive network of sociopaths a very few are willing to identify, engage or oppose. The tragedy is that we don’t even know or care enough about inequality and injustice to make a difference.

The simulated life in which we participate is our security blanket. It gives us an artificial sense of comfort, safety, status and purpose. It gives us a permissible excuse and reason to never become who we are meant to be. In our hearts and souls we know our potential and ability. Yet, we lean upon our shortcomings and reservations to prevent ourselves from creating and living our destiny. Mediocrity and insecurity seals the fate of our ordinary and meaningless suffrage. No matter how we may spin our incomplete and unfulfilled lives with financial, educational or religious means, they are still a lie.

The Dark Side:
Human beings exhibit characteristics that ultimately possess them for their entire lives. Many live with these conditions never knowing or understanding their dysfunctional nature and influence. Few are willing, open or authentic enough to identify and manage them. Even fewer are willing to transform them into opportunities to serve instead of being enslaved. This elaborate matrix of personal weakness and limitation festers in the presence of human conceit, denial, doubt, cognitive dissonance, self-righteousness and fear. They are all qualities that originate exclusively from the dark side of our ego.

Our ancient, reptilian mind is constantly seeking to take advantage and control of our life. We abide within a three-dimensional existence living a two-dimensional experience. What and how we identify and adopt as reality further strengthens the hold our ego has over us. It is a lifestyle that has been imposed upon us by a system of calculated progression, manufactured results, manipulated dynamics and engineered acquiescence. We are all caught in a spider web of deception. The very nature of the reality in which we exist is simply not conducive to truth, wisdom, community and above all else love.

Eventually, we become accustomed, comfortable and compliant within the shadows of our lives. We cower in the dark waiting for a chance that will never come. When it does arrive, it is merely a mirage of opportunity and success that leaves us empty and unfulfilled. We are disassociated with ourselves and our truth, passion, love and destiny. When we are presented with opportunity, we perceive it as a fleeting dream or an exodus from the “almighty” reality. Our reliance upon the common, familiar structures of mortal life prevents any and all true evolution and expression we may ever experience.

Seeing the Unseen:
Our visible world is less than 3% of the “known” universe. Our life is severely impaired by our archaic five senses. These expressions of our existence are the compass of our experience. They can also be the greatest diversions and inhibitors of our perception. As soon as we open our eyes, the alluring authority of visual reality compromises the balance between our senses. Our fascination and reliance upon sight instantly shifts our focus and awareness from a multi-dimensional possibility to a two-dimensional sentence. Our “blind” acceptance of reality confines us within our own invisible prison.

Sight is the most manipulated sense in our common reality. We are profoundly dependent upon what we see. We choose to believe more effortlessly and absolutely in what is visible than what is felt or intuited. It deceives us with our own apathy, criticism, denial, selfishness and opposition. All that we yearn to achieve in our lives is surrendered when we don’t choose to create or experience our lives to their fullest potential. The greatest weakness the human race believes to be its greatest strength is its mutual acceptance that life is measured by what we receive, not what we give.

There is only one way to truly experience the unseen dimensions of the universe. It requires a synergy between our instincts and our intelligence. This opens the gateway of our enlightened emotional consciousness. The balance between our body, mind and heart creates the three-dimensional equilibrium necessary to generate the appropriate focus, energy and expression to relate with our intuition. Our intuition is the “lightening” bolt that connects us with our soul. Only when we have attained this four dimensional, electromagnetic nexus within are we able to live in union with the universe.

All That Is True:
The truth of the human race never has, is or will ever be found upon the printed line. Because of its inclinations toward control and manipulation, humanity continues to exist within the darkness of its own conditioned intelligence, devoted compliance and unbridled insecurity. The human race is more willing to relinquish its personal power to authority than stand for and in its own. Personal power has become an endangered human expression. The daunting fear of responsibility that seemingly accompanies its ownership has not just made it nearly unattainable; it has rendered it non-existent.

Our perception of life and how we experience it is not our own. We are victims of an artificially imposed, media-driven deception. More often than not, our point of view is adopted instead of earned. Not just because we would choose to see it erroneously out of our apprehension for what “may” be true. It is mostly because we live in a false world, governed by false people with false intentions to gain false supremacy for false means. When we choose to establish and live our truth, it is a lonely, challenging and unfulfilling experience that yields very little “true” enlightenment in the “real” world.

Our lives are lived primarily upon the lines of a story we accept as the standard reality. The majority of humanity reads and emulates their role with patriotic obligation and obedience. Freedom will never be found in becoming a pawn upon the chessboard of society. It is claimed in our dedication to truly live, love and be. We must break our program and transcend the illusion in which we are all cast. Only when we read between the lines of reality will our truth be found. Only then will we be able to write our own lives. Only then will we be able to create the truth we are destined to be.

http://www.zengardner.com/between-the-lines/

 

Ghost Story

/ Iam Saums / Leave a comment

“We are the ghost in the machine.”

Something Wicked This Way Comes…

Society is a dark world in which billions of human beings fall prey to their own shadows.  Our collective fear has become so encompassing, we have anesthetized ourselves with our anxiety, conditions, drama, oblivion and uncertainty.  Our interpretation of reality is so confronting, intense and threatening, we enact a self-induced slumber, within which we simply survive.  In our illusory lives, we are haunted with the nightmare of what is and the dream of what may have been.  It is excruciating for us to accept, identify or even be with the insidiously wicked nature of the virtuality in which we engage.

The Nightmare of a Dream

Our nightmares are filled with the horrors of our broken commitments, destiny, potential and purpose.  These are the only virtues that allow us to create a thriving life for ourselves and our families.  Our experiences are littered with the shards of our unfulfilled dreams to manifest a better tomorrow for ourselves and future generations.  Our actions, intentions and visions have been thwarted by a globalized and propagandized vortex of social media.  A matrix proliferated for the sole intention of enabling our assimilation, deception, dependence, disempowerment, oppression and enslavement.

The Darkness Without

It lurks within the shadows, just beyond our hyperactive sensibilities, taunting us with the mere possibility of its arrival and impact.  The impending doom of its presence and the suspense of its approach preys upon our nerves as an archaic violin down a darkened alley.  The gravity of its dread imposes a trepidation, provoking us to run for our lives.  Our hearts race, as the intensity of our fear heightens to a fever pitch.  It renders us paralyzed within the agonizing buzz of our endorphins, in compensation for our waning confidence, courage, reason and strength.

The Darkness Within

Evil is not what, or how it is so commonly interpreted in our contemporary era.  It is not an ageless, ancient entity that defiles, haunts, hunts or stalks us.  It is not a presence that eternally defies and opposes our every endeavor and intention.  Evil is a subjective figment of our darkest conjuring.  We give our power over to our own shadows when we allow our perceptions to become more powerful than our vision.  The nature of our personal observation most often is erroneous and does not serve our optimal benefit.  We side with our selective narrative, much as we may cling to our dying breath.

A Knife to the Throat

We grow accustomed to the insanity around us, attempting to deceive ourselves into denying that what occurs in social reality is not a part of us, or even beneath us.  We conform, desensitize and integrate ourselves into the virtual role the societal matrix provides.  We adopt a conviction that success and survival will be found in competing with others to become something we were never destined.  Eventually, we succumb to authority, institutionalization and propaganda.  We are pushed and pulled from one circumstance to another, until we are assimilated into the persona we have always feared.

Shadow of a Demon

As smart rats, we are so clever with our existence.  We devise personal rackets, to which we are unaware and by which we are ruled.  We invent our own demons to avoid our soul expressions of our authenticity, integrity, purpose and transcendence.  This justifies and sanctions our cruelty, destruction, errancy and inhumanity.  We desperately seek to distance ourselves from the monsters we become in our selfish quest to advance and survive in an artificial and violent society.  The greatest darkness we will ever encounter is not the one that shadows us from without.  It is the evil we enable within.

“All left unseen and untended is what enslaves us with our very own fear.”

Creature Feature

We indoctrinate ourselves with instinct and intellect for conformity into society.  This pales in comparison to the cunning prowess of our egocentricity and its insatiable desire for dominance over our soul.  Conflict rages within us all, a timeless battle between the transcendent expressions of our heart and soul and the terrestrial professions of our mind and body.  We are conditioned into creatures of habit, existing in vicious cycles of emulation.  Our predatory ancestry enslaves us within a virtual duality, diminishing our instincts, thoughts, emotions, intuition and relativity.

The Walking Dead

We view our existence through selectively interpretive filters, fabricating our lives and performing our fantasies within the virtuality of our social reality.  We enact our apathy, fear, indifference and unwillingness to evade our destiny.  We believe we cannot survive under the gravity of our accountability, authenticity and integrity to embody our possibility, purpose and power.  We allow ourselves to become a projection of the social norm, bred for accumulation, amusement, diversion, narrative and oblivion.  We become the antithesis of life, condemned to exist en masse with the walking dead.

Ghosts of our Lives

We rarely live as cause in our lives.  We settle on surviving the outcomes of our seemingly random circumstances via our reactivity to ordinary occurrence.  As we become habituated to a coincidental lifestyle, we engage deeper into a dualistic existence within the three-dimensional hologram-projection we interpret as reality.  With every unconscious breath, we acquiesce our forsaken, personal power.  Our obedience to authoritarian entities and organizations is our evasion, excusing us from the choices we all must make.  We sever our relativity with our heart and soul, as we become ghosts of our lives.

Egocentric Evil

The perceptions we adopt and impose in our desperation to be accepted and adopted into a virtual simulation segregates us from relativity with our soul.  We are driven to seek our worth in others, instead of establishing our own through our being, expression, and universality.  We have existed outside of ourselves for so long, we mistake our delusion, ideology, narrative and propaganda as truth.  We are mere shadows of our younger selves, who once inspired and empowered us. We are seduced by the egocentric evils of our desire, entitlement, fear, intelligence, self-righteousness and vanity.

Ghost Story

We are all ghosts in our lives.  We haunt the empty halls of our oblivion in a futile attempt to find a forbidden treasure that has always been within us.  We live a ghost story when we conduct our consciousness away from being an expression of our soul.  It is our universal destiny to transform, transcend, express and embody universality.  We are an expression of empowerment, transformation and transcendence.  It is our collective destiny to be the extraordinary difference in our life, for others and the world.  The universal expression of our being is the embodiment of our soul.

“Our unfulfilled destiny is our ghost story.”

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/