One of the exciting things about launching our new website was that we would finally have a blog. This morning, while in the shower, the feeling arose that it was time to make the first entry. This thought was immediately followed by the big question: “What am I going to say?” As the warm water massaged me into the joy of being in a body for another day, I asked myself, “What would be most helpful to say to people?” I wanted the first post to be the quintessential essence of what Karen and I have come to understand during these past 25 years in assisting people to awaken.
The inquiry took me right back to the crucial moment in my own journey that formed the nucleus of what was to become the core focus of my own journey and subsequently the hub around which all of the awakening work spun. This time of epiphany I am about to share occurred during the darkest time in this life.
In my mid-20s, my life was completely disintegrating in virtually every area. Everything came apart within the course of a year. My wife left me for another man. Buying her out of our condo put me up to my eyeballs in debt. I left a very secure, well-paying job for a potentially lucrative business venture which failed. As a result of all this, my drinking and smoking had gone into the danger zone. I was out of control.
The inquiry took me right back to the crucial moment in my own journey that formed the nucleus of what was to become the core focus of my own journey and subsequently the hub around which all of the awakening work spun. This time of epiphany I am about to share occurred during the darkest time in this life.
In my mid-20s, my life was completely disintegrating in virtually every area. Everything came apart within the course of a year. My wife left me for another man. Buying her out of our condo put me up to my eyeballs in debt. I left a very secure, well-paying job for a potentially lucrative business venture which failed. As a result of all this, my drinking and smoking had gone into the danger zone. I was out of control.
One day I found myself sitting on the floor of my virtually empty condo in Orange County feeling deeply depressed. I felt like a complete failure, totally inept in getting my life together and finding even a modicum of peace and happiness. I understood why people chose to end their lives. When the pain becomes so great and there appears to be no way out, it can appear to be a merciful choice.
In this blackest of moments, I looked out the back window into the garden to see a small orange tree proudly displaying its first blossom ever. My mind was instantly taken back to the time when my ex-wife and I had planted this tree upon arriving in Southern California a few years earlier. I was brimming over with hope and optimism about the rich life that lay ahead for us. The day we planted the orange tree, we shared our dreams of what life might be like when the orange tree bore its first blossom.
Seeing that small, delicate flower that symbolized my hopes and dreams, against the stark contrast of where I actually found myself, came down upon me like a psychic sledge hammer. The wall of denial that dammed up the immense reservoir of pain broke. I found myself lying face-down on the floor wailing in grief and pain. Sobbing uncontrollably, I realized how lost I was. There was complete clarity that I could not continue in the way I was going. It was very clear to me that I was completely incapable of stopping this downward spiral into oblivion on my own. I needed help. I prayed to a God I did not know existed, imploring from the depths of my being, that if there was a God I was ready to receive help.
Within a short time, I began to experience a sensation in the center of my chest that would arise as a feeling of excitation or heightened energy. This happened spontaneously, at any time of the day or night. At first I feared that I might now have a heart condition, on top of the many other issues that already seemed overwhelming. But in time I began to see that this arising sensation or excitement wasn’t a threat and that it happened in relationship to certain things I was experiencing.
One day when I was speaking to a friend about acupuncture as a possible answer to the stress, anxiety and insomnia I was experiencing, the feeling became particularly strong in the area just above my heart in the center of my chest. In that moment I knew that the sensation was trying to tell me that it would be good for me to go experience the acupuncture even though, at the time, it seemed like a weird, strange and inscrutable modality. I followed this “prompting” and within a few months I felt markedly better after receiving weekly acupuncture.
In this blackest of moments, I looked out the back window into the garden to see a small orange tree proudly displaying its first blossom ever. My mind was instantly taken back to the time when my ex-wife and I had planted this tree upon arriving in Southern California a few years earlier. I was brimming over with hope and optimism about the rich life that lay ahead for us. The day we planted the orange tree, we shared our dreams of what life might be like when the orange tree bore its first blossom.
Seeing that small, delicate flower that symbolized my hopes and dreams, against the stark contrast of where I actually found myself, came down upon me like a psychic sledge hammer. The wall of denial that dammed up the immense reservoir of pain broke. I found myself lying face-down on the floor wailing in grief and pain. Sobbing uncontrollably, I realized how lost I was. There was complete clarity that I could not continue in the way I was going. It was very clear to me that I was completely incapable of stopping this downward spiral into oblivion on my own. I needed help. I prayed to a God I did not know existed, imploring from the depths of my being, that if there was a God I was ready to receive help.
Within a short time, I began to experience a sensation in the center of my chest that would arise as a feeling of excitation or heightened energy. This happened spontaneously, at any time of the day or night. At first I feared that I might now have a heart condition, on top of the many other issues that already seemed overwhelming. But in time I began to see that this arising sensation or excitement wasn’t a threat and that it happened in relationship to certain things I was experiencing.
One day when I was speaking to a friend about acupuncture as a possible answer to the stress, anxiety and insomnia I was experiencing, the feeling became particularly strong in the area just above my heart in the center of my chest. In that moment I knew that the sensation was trying to tell me that it would be good for me to go experience the acupuncture even though, at the time, it seemed like a weird, strange and inscrutable modality. I followed this “prompting” and within a few months I felt markedly better after receiving weekly acupuncture.
The rising sensation in my chest came more frequently as I began to realize it was trying to communicate with me. One day it dawned on me that my prayer for assistance had been answered and that an intelligent presence was residing within me, attempting to show me how to live my life. I began to meditate and contemplate this area above the heart, with a deep, sincere desire to know whatever it was better. The passion to commune with it on deeper levels grew. In response, its presence became fuller and richer and a deep sense of peace suffused my being. I turned to it whenever I had a question and felt and listened intently whenever it arose.
Everything in my life began to shift and change for the better. My health, career and financial situation improved. While this was a great relief, the positive change in my outer life was eclipsed by the peace and joy that came with the knowing that there was an intelligent and loving presence within me that I could trust totally. This only served to deepen the peace and happiness.
The story goes on over a period of seven years which I relate in our first book, Soul Awakening: The Journey from Ego to Essence. During this time I experienced a continuously upward trending journey marked by openings to the light, love and expanding consciousness of merging with my deeper true Self. With each upward thrust, the journey was often punctuated by deep descents into more pain and suffering as my personal purification continued. The dance of ascent and descent became an expected feature of the terrain. The higher I climbed the deeper I descended, and the divinity at the core of my soul deepened and expanded into more and more facets of my inner and outer experience.
A, if not The, major milestone of the journey occurred while living on Kauai in 1986 when the center above the heart, which I now knew to be the Lotus of the Soul, opened fully as the kundalini force at the base of the spine rose up through all the chakras and out the top of the head. The living experience that God/Oneness/All That Is lives in me as my true nature primally shifted the ground of being forever. I had finally found what I had been unconsciously seeking all my life in alcohol, money, fame, sex, drugs and the myriad other mis-attempts to assuage the existential pain of the hole in the center of my soul. From this moment forward, the burning truth that this was the most important experience that a human being could ever have was engraved in my soul.
When I was called to begin to assist others in the awakening journey, this realization formed the core consecration for the work, and has remained so for 25 years. Today, Karen and I agree that our deepest consecration and passion is in assisting those who are brought to us to experience the living reality that the divine is resting within them as their true, eternal nature. Everything about this work is geared to assist people to find their way through the ego veils, pools of pain and suffering and all the other seeming obstructions that hide from conscious awareness the truth of who and what we really are...peace, joy, wisdom, love, direct knowing of truth, and luminous divine presence as a holographic fractal of God/One/All That Is.
Each of us will make this inner journey until we experience the divinity that is our true nature and completely merge with it, dissolving into it and realizing our Self as it. This is the purpose of the soul’s journey as a human being. All of us will do this in one lifetime or another. If this is your lifetime to do so, we are here to assist you, and invite you to journey through our website and see if what we are presenting and who we are resonates with you.
If you would like to take the next step of exploring how we might work together to support your spiritual journey, we invite you to contact us for a free 20-minute consultation. During that time will begin to get to know each other, discuss where you are in your journey, and explore what the next steps might be.
Love and blessings,
Barry
Everything in my life began to shift and change for the better. My health, career and financial situation improved. While this was a great relief, the positive change in my outer life was eclipsed by the peace and joy that came with the knowing that there was an intelligent and loving presence within me that I could trust totally. This only served to deepen the peace and happiness.
The story goes on over a period of seven years which I relate in our first book, Soul Awakening: The Journey from Ego to Essence. During this time I experienced a continuously upward trending journey marked by openings to the light, love and expanding consciousness of merging with my deeper true Self. With each upward thrust, the journey was often punctuated by deep descents into more pain and suffering as my personal purification continued. The dance of ascent and descent became an expected feature of the terrain. The higher I climbed the deeper I descended, and the divinity at the core of my soul deepened and expanded into more and more facets of my inner and outer experience.
A, if not The, major milestone of the journey occurred while living on Kauai in 1986 when the center above the heart, which I now knew to be the Lotus of the Soul, opened fully as the kundalini force at the base of the spine rose up through all the chakras and out the top of the head. The living experience that God/Oneness/All That Is lives in me as my true nature primally shifted the ground of being forever. I had finally found what I had been unconsciously seeking all my life in alcohol, money, fame, sex, drugs and the myriad other mis-attempts to assuage the existential pain of the hole in the center of my soul. From this moment forward, the burning truth that this was the most important experience that a human being could ever have was engraved in my soul.
When I was called to begin to assist others in the awakening journey, this realization formed the core consecration for the work, and has remained so for 25 years. Today, Karen and I agree that our deepest consecration and passion is in assisting those who are brought to us to experience the living reality that the divine is resting within them as their true, eternal nature. Everything about this work is geared to assist people to find their way through the ego veils, pools of pain and suffering and all the other seeming obstructions that hide from conscious awareness the truth of who and what we really are...peace, joy, wisdom, love, direct knowing of truth, and luminous divine presence as a holographic fractal of God/One/All That Is.
Each of us will make this inner journey until we experience the divinity that is our true nature and completely merge with it, dissolving into it and realizing our Self as it. This is the purpose of the soul’s journey as a human being. All of us will do this in one lifetime or another. If this is your lifetime to do so, we are here to assist you, and invite you to journey through our website and see if what we are presenting and who we are resonates with you.
If you would like to take the next step of exploring how we might work together to support your spiritual journey, we invite you to contact us for a free 20-minute consultation. During that time will begin to get to know each other, discuss where you are in your journey, and explore what the next steps might be.
Love and blessings,
Barry
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