Category Archives: B Ch 3

Characteristics of the period prior to the psychological stage of enlightenment

B 3 Characteristics of the period prior to the psychological stage of enlightenment

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3 Characteristics of the period prior to the psychological stage of enlightenment

3.1 Measuring progress towards the first stage of enlightenment (below contents).

3.2 Act.

3.3 Problems encountered on the spiritual path.

3.4  Coping with uncertainty.

3.5 Centred in the midst of conditions.

3.6 The ten conditions and the associated power structures.

3.7.1 The power discipline:

3.7.2 Input.

3.7.3 Pivot.

3.7.4 Act.

3 Characteristics of the period prior to the psychological stage of enlightenment

3.1 How do you measure your progress along the path towards the psychological stage of enlightenment?

 

Reality can be understood either as a mechanical, or as an organic, process – an infinite and a unified whole. Everything that happens within reality has meaning. The first and most difficult step along the path to understanding reality through experience is to grow and expand your awareness until it stabilises in the psychological state known as the first stage of enlightenment.

 

Reality is an organic machine structured to operate in accordance with immutable laws. To understand and experience reality as it is, your actions must be in harmony with the natural laws which govern and inform all that can be experienced. Each one of us is an integral and organic component of reality.

 

Reality is an infinite process unfolding through time, configured to operate at one setting only. The past is memory, individual or cultural, the future is both potential and fantasy: always and unendingly the process occurs now. As you move towards the psychological stage of enlightenment, through the practice of meditation, progress can be measured by the extent to which you interpret your day-to-day experiences within the context of what is happening now, at this present moment.

 

Karma is a term used in Eastern implicate technology systems to describe one of the implacable laws of reality. Your karma is the result of the choices you make. In the West, we know karma as the law of cause and effect.

 

Psychologically, our culture understands this unyielding law as the accumulated weight of experience, preserved within oneself, and shaping one’s choices and experiences The traditional teaching of our deeper psychologies involves a tortuous process of gradually understanding and coming to terms with these deep psychological determinants which shape each individual’s behaviour. The teachings offered here show a well-trodden and faster path to freedom from the accumulated weight of experience which shapes each moment experienced in ordinary states of awareness.

 

As each of us ages and matures, the weight of our burdens increases. In our highly stressful culture, day-to-day life becomes an increasing struggle. Consistent, committed daily practice of this meditation leads to a profoundly fulfilling release from the sense of burden.

 

The key to releasing the full benefits of meditation lies in understanding the occurrences of your day-to-day life in terms of these teachings. This is the raw beginning of the fundamental process of learning to live your life in meditation. This meditation is a simple self-help tool available to anyone committed to transforming her or his daily experience of living.

 

The key to effecting the transformation within oneself is very easy to learn, but very hard to apply. The meditation teaches you to focus your concentration on one simple activity. The key is always to understand each moment of each day in terms of these teachings: always to keep the teachings in mind.

 

 

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B 3.2 The context in which to “ACT”.

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3.2 The context in which to Act.

To effect the transformation successfully within a hundred days, you need a context within which you can operate meaningfully, to guide you through the many choices you make each day. To attain the psychological stage of enlightenment you need give your allegiance to no force outside yourself. Remember the teachings within the context of Act:

Act according to your intuition

Set face to face with reality, when you are experiencing reality directly, each moment offers you a choice. As you choose or fail to choose, so you create your karma. Follow the still small voice of your intuition.

Don’t interfere

Each one of us is an integral and organic component of reality. By interfering, you choose to act against the flow of reality. Allow reality to unfold both within yourself and externally.

 Just let things happen

To live in the flow of reality is to experience your life with clarity, serenity and a quiet fulfilling joy. This is the path to integrating your awareness into reality – this is the path to experiencing your life in the fulness of reality. Learn to accept reality as it unfolds.

This teaching on Act is the key to the process of enlightenment, the secret of the golden flower. To live in accordance with these teachings is to experience your life as a dynamically unfolding process. But first you must learn to be passive in the face of reality. Learn actively to accept your ordinary day-to-day reality in its utter fulness.

The measure of how close you are to attaining the psychological stage of enlightenment is the extent to which you are able to understand the experiences of your life in the terms of these teachings while fitting your behaviour within the constructs of Act. As you develop, your intuitive awareness of time will unfold – you will gradually lose the illusory sense of past, present and future; gradually you will gain the ability to live in the ever-present now. Finally, you will be free from the burden of the past, free at last from the psychological burdens which you have carried for so long.

* * * *

Live

Live the teachings, live the teachings.

Act

Act according to your intuition.

Don’t interfere.

Just let things happen.

* * *

The formula for attaining enlightenment is:

Throughout your life, Live and Act

*  *  *  *

 

 

B 3.3 What is it like to experience life on the path to the psychological stage of enlightenment?

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3.3 What is it like to experience life on the path to the psychological stage of enlightenment?

 

Although each of us is born, lives and dies, the experiences of each life are unique. Similarly, although the mechanics of the path to the first enlightenment are common to all, each of us experiences the path in a different way. In our spiritually barren Western cultures, the path to the psychological enlightenment is challenging, often difficult and sometimes dangerous.

 

As you develop in understanding, according to your gifts and temperament, so you will seek to articulate the unfolding of reality in the terms of your worldview. You may choose to articulate your experience in the religious terms of mainstream Christianity, Judaism or Islam; or you may be inclined towards the spiritual models of the Jewish Kabbala, Islamic Sufism, Western Paganism or the higher teachings of Hinduism, Buddhism or Taoism. Equally, in our largely secular Western cultures, you may be an atheist or an agnostic.

 

Your belief structure determines how you understand and articulate your experience of reality. All belief structures act as a distorting mechanism on the clear understanding and experiencing of reality. This teaching of the clear setting face to face with reality offers knowledge based on experience. No belief structure is required simply practice the teachings.

 

Even the atheist and agnostic have belief structures, we all do. Learn to be guided not by beliefs, but by what you know and understand through direct experience. Your beliefs are an impediment on the path to understanding; what matters is that you directly experience reality.

 

As you experience reality directly, you will seek to articulate your understanding in the terms of a belief structure relevant to your needs. You can choose with equal validity to follow a religious or a secular path. All models of reality reflect reality according to the varying needs of the cultures, times and individuals which produce and utilise them.

 

Although all models of reality are valid in different ways and in different cultural environments, do not expect to find that the representatives of these models are trained to understand and deal with the issues raised in this book. Priests, ministers and rabbis are ordinary individuals trained in theological and religious matters. Their training does not, in general, provide them with a path towards understanding reality through experience.

 

As you experience the difficulties of the continuous emotional transformations necessarily involved, you may be tempted to turn to the medical profession for guidance and assistance during this period of uncertainty in your life. Be extremely cautious in approaching a profession which is trained to understand and treat the human body as separate parts. These people are unlikely to be trained in the skills of treating a person experiencing the transformations leading to wholeness.

 

Become aware of the alternative therapies available. Many of these involve inexpensive treatment of the whole person. As you become sensitive to your own needs, you will be drawn to an appropriate source of healing.

 

In the spiritually advanced cultures of the East, it is traditional to be taught this process of the gradual transformation of awareness directly by a living, recognised master. Our Western cultures have developed on the sound basis of the Judeo-Christian code of ethics. In the current spiritually barren cultural conditions, it is unlikely that you will be taught in the traditional face to face manner by a living teacher. In general, you will have to develop, through practice of the skills taught in this book, the ability to survive, flower and transform, in a culture which is inimical and hostile to the process of inner development.

 

Finally, do not anticipate understanding or help from your family or friends. It is possible that through their lack of understanding of the process you are experiencing they will react with incomprehension, hostility and fear. Through practice of the day-to-day adaptation and survival skills taught in chapter 8, you will, in time, find the living guidance, support and companionship you truly need and deserve.

 

 

B 3.4 How does one experience the uncertainty of being set face to face with reality?

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3.4 How does one experience the uncertainty of being set face to face with reality?

 

As you develop in understanding, through the experience of integrating the fruits of meditation into your everyday life, you enter into a period of increasing uncertainty. Your previously held beliefs about what is important and real crumble in the face of direct experience of reality. However disconcerting, unpleasant and miserable you find this experience, remember it is a necessary and healing part of the process of becoming set face to face with reality.

 

This state of uncertainty is a necessary process of eroding and dismantling, through your reaction to the circumstances of your life, the belief structures underpinning your personality. The structures you have imposed on reality, the way your beliefs have shaped your thoughts and actions, are being dissolved in the face of reality. Reality devours the personality.

 

This process heals through removal of the illusory limitations of the personality. This natural, painful and difficult experience leads to your awareness stabilising, in time, beyond the personality. It is only when one’s awareness operates outside of emotional and intellectual structures that the true setting face to face with reality can begin.

 

The feelings of misery and sorrow which occur now are the birth pangs of your new awareness. Like natural childbirth, the experience becomes more fulfilling when one learns to detach oneself from the pain. Gradually, as you endure through time, you will experience a new understanding, a release from pain into clarity, serenity and quiet joyousness.

 

The uncertainty of this period, as the illusory structures of the personality are swept away, leads to a profound sense of instability. The difficulties and dangers of this stage can be compounded if those with whom one is accustomed to share one’s life are unaware of, or hostile to, the process of inner transformation. The way to emerge from these difficulties in your life is to Live and Act.

 

If you seek to interfere, in your distress, you will only gain more trouble. Learn to accept without interference the events of your life as they unfold. Above all, learn to develop your sense of empowering your life only by following your intuition.

 

At this time, your life as you have understood and experienced it will seem to be dissolving in uncertainty. Learn not to seek to impose your own sense of order on reality. Put aside your desire for stability and security in your life.

 

Through daily practice of the meditation in the context given, you will gradually develop a profound sense of inner stillness and security. Gradually, you will learn to accept the conditions of your life without interfering. Above all, learn to shape your life actively, in accordance with the natural laws governing reality, by becoming centred in the midst of conditions.

 

Throughout your life, Live and Act. There are no circumstances or conditions, no hazards of life, which cannot be harmoniously negotiated through practice of these skills. Rise above the circumstances of your life through becoming centred in the midst of conditions.

 

B 3.5.1 What does it mean, to be centred in the midst of conditions?

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3.5.1 What does it mean, to be centred in the midst of conditions?

 

This is a very fine phrase: centred in the midst of conditions. It should be thought about carefully. When you understand this as a continuous experience, and not just intellectually or emotionally, you will have attained the psychological stage of enlightenment.

 

The conditions which constrain our lives are common to each of us, but the specific details vary according to individual circumstances. These conditions are imposed both internally within the personality, and externally upon the personality. They operate on both the material and non-material levels of reality.

 

There are ten conditions which interweave, waxing and waning endlessly, to form each moment you experience. The circumstances of your life are shaped by these conditions: karma; space and time; physical, emotional and intellectual limiting factors; moral and social constraints, and political and economic pressures. The purpose of the power discipline taught later in this chapter is to empower you to deal effectively with and to transform the conditions of your life.

 

The condition of karma is discussed in detailed contemporary terms in chapter 4. In our spiritually barren, late-twentieth-century Western cultures, we have only a slight degree of understanding of the crucially important nature of karma. Unless you are responsive to the promptings of karma in your life, you can have no hope or prospect of a genuinely fulfilling life.

 

Birth and death punctuate our lives. As we age, our lives unfold through understanding and experience. Time is the medium through which all things occur.

 

Each of our bodies requires space to exist. The things which exist through space constrain and limit us, through our needs and desires for them. Space is the medium through which all things occur.

 

Time and space are inextricably woven together. They are the basic conditions of existence. Every being with any form of awareness, and every thing, is subject to these dual forces.

 

The conditions of space and time are discussed more fully in the transpersonal meditations of chapter 5. The full teachings on the nature of space and time are beyond the scope of this book. The final stage of enlightenment, the union of self with reality, only occurs when the unified nature of space and time has been fully realised through experience.

 

In our cultures, we are familiar with discussing and analysing our lives in terms of the seven remaining conditions. This chapter discusses them within the context of Implicate Technology disciplines. Practice of these disciplines will empower you to understand and break free from the oppressive forces dominating your life.

 

Be clear: every unenlightened person lives a life hemmed in and limited by the ten conditions – just because you are unaware of your own limitations doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. The purpose of these teachings is to provide you with the skills to triumph over the conditions of your life. If you confuse this with vain dreams of triumph over your opponents, then reality, through the workings of karma, will deal with such unenlightened behaviour in its own way.

 

In the midst of these conditions is yourself, experiencing life through action and reaction to things and people. Through practice of these teachings you will learn to focus your awareness of reality through the still, calm centre of your self. This is what it means to be ‘centred in the midst of conditions’.

 

B 3.5.2 In what way are emotions, experienced within the limitations of the personality, relatively illusory?

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3.5.2 In what way are emotions, experienced within the limitations of the personality, relatively illusory?

 

Prior to attaining the first stage of enlightenment, the emotions are the primary medium through which you experience the conditions of life. You respond across the range of emotions according to the way your personality interacts with reality. As the circumstances of your life unfold, so you respond emotionally to a greater or lesser degree, according to your individual nature.

 

It is possible for a personality to appear to operate primarily from an intellectual rather than an emotional base. This is simply a form of emotional camouflage, based on a flight from the reality of emotional experience. It is not possible to experience life fully through the intellect.

 

All aspects of the personality set limiting structures on the direct experiencing of reality. The emotional range of responses, as experienced within the constructs of the personality, embodies a relatively underdeveloped reaction to reality. In relation to one who experiences reality from the standpoint of the first stage of enlightenment, these emotional responses are best understood as self-generated, self-perpetuating activities, illusory in the face of reality.

 

The experience of time as fragmented into past, present and future becomes understood as an illusion relative to the sense of the eternal present which is experienced after attaining the first stage of enlightenment. In the same way, the emotions experienced as real within the limitations of the personality become experienced as only relatively real. After the first stage of enlightenment, emotions are still experienced within the personality, but now such emotions are understood as being of only relative and limited importance in the face of reality.

 

 

B 3.6.1 How is one to deal with the experience of life in the midst of these conditions?

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3.6.1 How is one to deal with the experience of life in the midst of these conditions?

 

One’s reaction at first, before practice of these teachings has borne fruit, remains as before. One acts and reacts according to the blend of emotions and the system of values held, which form the basis for the choices made by the personality at each moment. One incurs karmic consequences within the relatively illusory limitations of the personality.

 

As your experience of these teachings develops, you will learn new skills through the practice of meditation. At first, you will simply develop basic skills such as control of the breathing and patience. These are very valuable skills in themselves; a great deal depends on them.

 

It makes no difference to the realisation of the fruits of these teachings in your life whether you are unemployed or in work, poor or not. In the path to enlightenment, the absence of money no more hinders one who lacks it than its presence helps one who possesses it. All are equal in the face of reality.

 

As you progress in your commitment to the daily practice of meditation, the practice itself will become the central thread of your life. For this, you depend totally on yourself, you need no objects and only the simplest of conditions. This is something for yourself and completely within your own power to achieve.

 

You may object that not everyone can ensure time alone and uninterrupted – it is not always easy. The answer is that if you cannot create such simple conditions then there will be no enlightenment. This is very hard work, according to your life circumstances.

 

Once awoken, the drive towards enlightenment is strong within us. Everything else pales into unimportance beside it; yet the path to enlightenment involves all we experience. Practice of these teachings will awaken your innate capacity to experience enlightenment.

 

Gradually, as the fruits of meditation ripen in your life, you will begin to experience the events and activities of each day with a new understanding. As your awareness goes through the many emotional transformations before the first enlightenment, you will gradually develop the ability to understand reality in a simple, clear and direct way. In the midst of conditions, you will be better able to understand, and deal with, the power structures imposed on your life.

 

B 3.6.2 What are these power structures which influence each life so deeply?

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3.6.2 What are these power structures which influence each life so deeply?

 

Each one, each thing, in existence is subject to the conditions of time and space. We each, sooner or later, will experience death. We each have similar minimum requirements for physical survival.

 

To live our lives, we each require an adequate supply of food, drink, shelter and warmth. One way or another, we each must find a means to procure what we need and desire. In this way we are all the same.

 

We place a great deal of value on what we need and desire, whether people or things, explicate or implicate, experienced physically, emotionally, intellectually or beyond. Through our individual circumstances and conditions, these needs and desires shape our lives. To fulfil them, we learn to acquire, and submit to, power.

 

These skills in the ways of power are developed from birth, with the first demands for fulfilment. As we grow to adulthood, we learn to deal with the power structures surrounding those involved in our lives. We each, according to our willingness to understand, learn from experience who holds the power in any situation.

 

This holds true for all of us. All things are created through power. The more clearly you are aware how power is structured in a particular situation, the more likely you are to create a satisfying outcome.

 

In the final analysis, we each create the shape of our own lives, subject to the explicate and implicate laws of reality. According to the clarity of your mind, you will be more or less aware of the truth of this. Understanding your life in the context of these teachings will empower you to achieve a more fulfilling life through practice of the power discipline.

 

B 3.7.1 What is this power discipline?

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3.7.1 What is this power discipline?

 

 

It is a way of acting, through understanding, to negotiate your way through the hazards of any particular situation. In every situation, in every set of conditions, no matter how adverse, there is always power available to you. Committed practice of the power discipline will enable you to identify and utilise the power inherent in any situation.

 

Preparation for the power discipline begins with daily practice of the meditation. Gradually, you will learn to incorporate the fruits of meditation into your life by Live-ing and Act-ing. In this way you learn to set yourself face to face with reality.

 

The more directly you are set face to face with reality, the more you see any situation clearly, as it is, the more possible it is to produce a fulfilling outcome. The power discipline reflects the harmonious laws governing reality. To use power for unselfish ends incurs positive karmic consequences, to use power for selfish ends incurs negative karmic consequences.

 

The law of karma will be discussed more fully in chapter 4. It is inviolable. It is inherent in the structure of reality.

 

Practice of this discipline will empower you to deal with any situation, through a clear understanding. As you choose, through your actions, so you shape your life. According to your motives, so you will incur the karmic consequences of your actions.

 

You are free to choose and to Act, now, and at all times, as best you are able in the prevailing circumstances. We are all subject to the conditions of space, time and karma. Within this context, we each must face reality.

 

Practice of the power discipline will help you face reality. You are free to use it unselfishly or selfishly, for good or evil, according to your nature. The power discipline is a smooth, flowing, harmonious, organic action, understood in three steps:

 

Input, Pivot then Act

 

B 3.7.2 How does the “INPUT” step unfold?

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3.7.2 How does the Input step unfold?

 

The first step is the one in which the intellect is very important. Your intellect is an essential tool to help you understand reality through analysis. Remember, however, intellectual analysis is, in itself, inadequate to the task of understanding reality through experience.

 

You begin by becoming aware of the situation you are in. Every situation occurs within many overlapping sets of conditions. The more conditions you are aware of, the wider the context within which you understand the situation, the better you are able to deal directly with reality.

 

Begin with the simplest conditions. Become aware of how the power is structured and who wields it. Begin to face reality directly.

 

Become aware of the physical, emotional, intellectual, moral, social, political and economic conditions determining the outcome of each situation you find yourself in. All of this occurs within the context of space, time and karma. We each live our lives, as best we can, within the circumstances imposed on us by these conditions.

 

Begin by understanding each situation within the terms of the lessons you have learnt by the daily practice of meditation. Become aware of who holds the power and how it is wielded. Learn to identify and use your own power, and when to submit to another’s.

The power analysis of the physical situation embraces all the significant physical elements. These objects, people or forces empower yourself and others in myriad ways, through legal, moral, or physical ownership. Learn to identify the nature of the power involved, who holds the power and how it is wielded. Only then will you have a clear understanding of how you stand in relation to this power.

 

The power analysis of the emotional situation embraces all the discernable and relevant emotions of yourself and others. These emotions arise through the complex of our needs and desires, for people and things. The more you are able to rise above the emotions of your personality, through realising their relatively illusory nature, the less will you be subject both to the power of your emotions and to other people’s capacity to wield power over you through your emotional links with them or with things.

 

The power analysis of the intellectual situation embraces all the aspects of the experience which are susceptible to intellectual discrimination. The function of your intellect is to assist in understanding your experience, it is secondary to experience itself. The ideas of the mind are relevant to us relative to our ability to use them to attain what we need and desire.

 

The power analysis of the moral environment embraces all those activities and desires, concerning people and things, which operate within your own or others’ moral constructs. All moral codes have power in a particular situation, according to the extent to which those present subscribe to the code. Become aware of the effects of moral conditions on your own viewpoint and that of others.

 

The power analysis of the social situation embraces all the frameworks of custom and law which constrain our behaviour. The power of these frameworks, in any specific situation, depends on how enforceable they are in subtle and overt ways. Become aware of the social constraints imposed on and by yourself and others.

 

The power analysis of the political situation embraces all the ways employed by yourself and others to gain your own ends. Politics, in the widest sense, is the process whereby individuals and groups control and manipulate, to impose their will upon others. Learn to recognise who is doing what, to whom, and why – then you will understand the politics of the situation.

 

The power analysis of the economic situation embraces all the conditions imposed on us by our own and others’ needs and desires for material things. Control of material things is usually maintained by physical force, or through more subtle means. In any situation, learn to recognise how you are constrained by your needs and desires for material things.

 

These conditions interweave and combine, to a greater or lesser degree, in each situation you face. Through practice of the input step, you will become aware of the conditions imposed on yourself and others. Be clear in your understanding of your constraints; set yourself face to face with reality.

 

The complexity of this process of analysis reflects the complexity of your actual experience. As you first practise, Input may be time-consuming and require a great deal of thought about your life circumstances. After a time, as you become more aware, you will be able to perform the Input step with speed and fluidity.

 

 

B 3.7.3 How does the “PIVOT” step unfold?

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3.7.3 How does the Pivot step unfold?

 

The Input step, the process of analysis, is as complete as you are willing and able to make it. You become aware, to a greater or lesser degree according to the amount and quality of your effort, of the conditions imposed on yourself and others. You are aware of the way the power in the situation is structured.

 

The task of the Pivot step is to prepare for an action which will alter the balance of power, harmoniously. For an action to achieve this, it must be simple, daring and effective. Such an action can only be supplied by your intuition.

 

The process of analysis, through the Input step, reveals to you the configuration of conditions which shapes the environment under analysis. You are now aware of the forces, pressures and people who hold, or are subject to, power in the situation. Before you can harmoniously weave a path through all these conditions you must become still.

 

Be centred in the midst of conditions. Understand that your personal configuration of needs and desires is illusory relative to the implacable power structures of reality. Be still, simply understand the situation as it is, and not from the relatively illusory and selfish viewpoint of your personality.

 

As you become centred in the midst of conditions, your thoughts will become calm, still and clear. You will cease to understand things in terms of the satisfaction of your needs and desires. You will understand that if you act to further your personal desires, reality will devour your works – none is exempt from this process.

 

Poised, centred in the midst of conditions, your understanding of the situation will configure in a lightning flash of intuition. Aware of when to wield and to yield to power, your intuition will articulate your next action. This is the moment when it becomes possible to Pivot the balance of power.

 

 

B 3.7.4 How does the “ACT” step unfold?

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3.7.4 How does the Act step unfold?

 

There are ten conditions, not nine. There are ten conditions, not eleven. Every situation you are set face to face with, in reality, can be understood as configured in the terms of these ten conditions – karma space and time; physical, emotional and intellectual limiting factors moral and social constraints, political and economic pressures.

 

The Input step, the analysis of the situation, is completed. The Pivot step, the lightning flash of intuitive understanding creating the possibility of harmoniously transforming the balance of power, is completed. Now is the time to Act.

 

The Action you take should flow harmoniously from your circumstances. Through understanding your experience, your intuition will guide you towards the next step. Learn to act on the still, quiet voice of your intuition.

 

For your Action to avoid incurring negative karmic consequences, it should not interfere with people or things. To interfere is an act of self-will and goes against the flow of reality. Reality is a harmonious, self-balancing, unity; if you act against the natural flow of events you will, sooner or later, incur a corresponding negative reaction.

 

When you Act, just let things happen, easily and naturally, within yourself and in terms of your behaviour towards other people and things. In every situation, no matter how apparently hopeless, there is always power for you to use harmoniously. If you wield and yield to power in an organic, flowing way, reality will unfold in its own manner.