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Soul Retrieval: Reconnecting with the Missing Pieces of your Soul

Sonali Bansal
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29
Soul Retrieval: Reconnecting with the Missing Pieces of your Soul

“It is believed that whenever we suffer an emotional or physical trauma a part of our soul flees the body in order to survive the experience. The definition of soul that I am using is soul is our essence, life force, the part of our vitality that keeps us alive and thriving.” – Sandra Ingerman, author of Soul Retrieval

Most shamanic cultures around the world believe that illness is due to the loss of the soul. Soul loss is an adaptive mechanism that allows us to cope, and in some situations, survive a terrible experience, in which the dissociated soul parts depart, carrying the pain or an extreme emotion that may be unbearable to the sufferer when it occurred.

This survival area cannot be tapped ordinarily and only under the intervention of a shaman, who can tap this non-ordinary reality, the soul can be facilitated back into the body. Traditionally, a shaman would conduct a soul retrieval within three days of someone experiencing soul loss.

According to Ingerman, “It is important to understand that soul loss is a good thing that happens to us. It is how we survive pain.” Many of us feel like we are missing an important part of ourselves, or feel like we are not quite whole.

Sometimes we also experience soul loss as a chronic illness or face debilitating emotions such as sadness, anger, depression etc.

According to Jung, the only way to address the deep loss of connection to the soul that we are experiencing as a species is to reestablish our connection to the sacred.

The soul is what connects you not only to your own value and essence, but to the value and essence of every other living being. The inevitability of soul loss in modern times cannot be overruled.

Most of us do not know that we have disconnected from our soul and have come to accept as normal a numbness and lack of meaning in our lives.

What are the causes of Soul Loss?

Apart some obvious causes of Soul loss like serious surgery, accident, shock etc. here is a short list of causes for soul loss:

  • Any form of abuse from sexual to emotional to mental
  • An event of prolonged grief, pain and fear that made you feel trapped without any possibility of escape
  • When you feel shameful enough that you would like to shun ourselves from the world for quite some time.
  • Giving a part of your soul unconsciously in a dependent relationship to another, just like giving away your power to the other person.
  • A sudden, shocking incident traps a part of our soul in that time or situation like a ghost.
  • An event where we are rejected, bullied, insulted or are unsupported
  • Under the spell of addiction, we sign a part of our soul to that thing
  • Constantly suppressing the intuition until the part of intuition leaves the body

Self-inflicted soul loss is another vital reason. By blocking the part of our personality that is socially unacceptable, we shun the part of our soul. Gradually the shunned part splits and goes into hiding where it is revered.

For instance, as a child, we are constantly reminded of the do’s and don’ts. So if a child is noisy or naughty, he is constantly reprimanded & asked to suppress this emotion. A constant suppression blocks a vital part of his personality, thereby facilitating the fragmentation of that part.

Are you suffering from Soul Loss?

Modern man, lost in the circle of creation and victimization of the dog-eat-dog ideology, has lost an integral part of their soul, without doubt. Here are symptoms that indicate soul loss:

  • A sensation of fragmentation and feeling incomplete, like a part is missing
  • The flat, indifferent attitude towards development in life.
  • The feeling of low self-esteem and considering oneself as unimportant or not worthy.
  • Depression or panic attacks
  • Inability to decide and a feeling of being aimless & lost.
  • Fearful attitude before doing anything.
  • Lost in a bad relationship, situations or places.
  • A sense of non-recovery from a past traumatic event.
  • Anger management issues and the helpless feeling on the inability to shake off anger, stress, fear or grief.
  • A constant desire to go back in the past and make things good.
  • Most importantly, if you feel soul retrieval is the answer to your worries.


The last one is significant to our understanding because generations ago each & every person practiced Shamanism.

This central way of living required them to perform soul retrieval each time a trauma occurred. This vital knowledge of our ancestors still remains in some part of our unconscious mind.

And if an ardent need is experienced to get a soul retrieval performed on oneself, it is highly likely that your ancestral wisdom is guiding you.

What happens in Soul Retrieval?

soul retrieval

The first obstacle in soul retrieval is to actually find the lost soul piece/s. Since, we’ve drifted away from the connections we once had with our soul, the shamanic healer has to drift into the past.

“Today, as we have not been practicing soul retrieval, modern day practitioners are going back ten, twenty, thirty, or forty years or even more looking for lost soul parts.”, says Ingerman.

Earlier individuals knew the real reason for illness and recovered by spiritually practicing soul retrieval on their own.

With the help of drumming, rattling, crystals, the shamanic practitioner connects himself with the patient. The shaman relies on the assistance of his or her spirit guides and power animal allies to aid her/him in this process.

Journeying into inner and outer realms, the healer persuades the missing pieces of the soul to return and removes the obstacles as well. Upon completion of the journey, the healer returns the missing soul parts by blowing them into the heart chakra, and into the crown of the head.

The reaction to the process can be felt immediately or after some time when analysed in retrospect. The ability to receive and store on the part of the patient, is a great factor that determines the impact of the process.

Sometimes more than one session can be necessary, if the lost piece requires more attention, persuasion or more than one piece is lost. Some related therapies of shamanism like power retrieval, shamanic extraction or body re-patterning might be performed simultaneously to achieve enhanced results.

Mother Earth demands her children to return to their natural state of happiness, wholeness and harmony within themselves and externally too. Imagine a world where all souls are whole and complete; each day would be a celebration.

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Healing by Case & Draper, Alaska
Soul retrieval
Soul retrieval

How to Channel Source Energy in our Creative Endeavors

Nikki Sapp
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How to Channel Source Energy in our Creative Endeavors

 “The Universe is saying, ‘allow me to flow through you unrestricted, and you will see the greatest magic you have ever seen.” ~ Klaus Joehle

Our only real task, mission, purpose, whatever you want to call it, we have here on Earth is to create. In fact, our entire life is just one big piece of art that we are creating as we go along. Source energy is in a state of constant creation.

We are a fraction of source energy, so we are also in this state at all times, whether we know it or not. On a large scale we are creating our life, but we also are creating in our day to day lives.

It may come in the form of writing, painting, cooking, making music, or even just interacting with other people. We are creating stories, circumstances, feelings, physical activity etc…

Although every single one of us is an artist to some extent or another, those that actually consider themselves artists know that by getting out of their heads and creating from their awareness purely, they are able to experience a state of transcending thought, which allows them to create some of their best and most divinely inspired works.

tap-into-source energySome people call it “getting in the zone”, “being in the vortex” or “channeling”, but basically when we create from a place of pure presence, we feel at one with the source of all life. Our creation, whatever it may be, seems to be moving THROUGH us, rather than by us.

This allowance of the energy of the Universe to be moving through our physical body into our work of “art”, is one of the easiest ways for people to get in touch with that field of pure awareness and be in a state of complete mindfulness that we hear so much about these days.

So how do we do it? How can we get in touch with the source energy inside of us and tap into the place that all creation stems from in order to not only create our lives but also to bring that energy of divinity into our writing, music, cooking etc… ? “In breathing, everyone assimilates next to oxygen but also prana, a cosmic energy.

In that way, everyone is a channel for the energy of the cosmos to the earth. The cosmic energy stands for love, peace, joy, intuition inspiration and light.”- Unknown

Tapping into source energy requires us to rise above the field of thought and mind. When we get to this place, we can create from a place of being and our creation seems to just flow effortlessly.

The method that one is able to tap into source energy may change from person to person, but the most effective way to get in this place of “no-mind” is to meditate before you create.

Imagine every breath you take as inhaling energy straight from source, and allow your attention on your breath to take you away from your thoughts. You may ask “God” or Source or the Universe to use your physical body, whether it be your hands or your ears, or your words as its a “paintbrush”.

When we set the intention to make our physical body the means to which the Universe can create or manifest whatever its will is, we tap directly into the highest source of creation.

When we think of it as the Universe is using us to experience itself and using our bodies and works of art as one way to experience the “all that is” we will be able to create more effectively and effortlessly.

create-in-lifeAnother path we can use to channel divine energy is to tap into our emotions, and use them as the fuel to create our art. As we all know some of the best music, paintings, and writing are all inspired by feelings such as love, anger, sadness, etc…

When we use the energy of our emotions as the drive behind our creation, we are able to not only work through the emotions in a positive and healthy way, but we are also able to make somewhat of a tangible “diary” of how we were feeling at any particular moment. You can really create whatever “ritual” you like in order to get into this place.

It may be just sitting outside for 5-10 minutes before you start working in order to just clear your head and start resonating with the vibration of nature, or even going to a special place in your home that you have deemed a “sacred space”, or even something like prayer before you create will help set the intention to make your creation of the highest order.

A guided meditation to tap into source energy –

We are all artists. Even if you don’t participate in one of the more common “mediums” of art, you are still co-creating your life alongside source. When we don’t resonate in this presence of source we actually hand the keys over to our subconscious mind, which means we have no real control as to what is being created.

By consciously tapping into source we unlock all the infinite possibilities and magic that the Universe has just waiting for us to call on. Find your passion. Find that one thing that makes you feel like time no longer exists, and you could do for hours and still feel you haven’t worked at all.

We all have something inside of us just begging to manifest into physical form. Exercise, paint, make clothes, start a business, give someone advice, manifest situations or things… it doesn’t really matter what you choose.

The works that we create while here on Earth become our greatest legacy that we leave here long after we are gone.

Image Source

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Mind
Universe
Heaven’s gate

The Mantra of Compassion: Om Mani Padme Hum

Lauren
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The Mantra of Compassion: Om Mani Padme Hum

“All that is visible, clings to the invisible.” ~ Novalis

The purifying and often debated mantra of Tibet: Om Mani Padme Hum is one of the most recognizable mantras in the world and appears in much religious Buddhist imagery, as well as the average chanting session for any beginner in their introduction to the world of meditation. But how much do we really understand its meaning?

The Mantra of Compassion: Om Mani Padme Hum

While in the West, the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, as well as Christian symbolism and theology may be more familiar, the origins of Eastern mythologies are much more mysterious to us until we actually visit a specific country or take a keen interest in one aspect of it.

Even the word; Mantra, can be better understood from the root Man ‘to think’ (Greek, Menos, Latin, Mens) and the suffix Tra, which forms ‘tool’ words.

According to the book – Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism, by Lama Anagarika Govinda, Om Mani Padme Hum can be dissected and better understood as follows:

OM

The seed-syllable of the universe, OM invokes the ever-present power of consciousness.

In fact, it represents the all-encompassing consciousness, combining both sleep and waking consciousness that is experienced beyond words and thoughts on the forth dimension.

OM is liberation, an opening up to the universe, a statement that one is ready to climb the first few rungs on the ladder towards enlightenment.

This statement also extends to the claim that one will follow the path to be a Bodhisattva; cultivating what is good and swearing life-long service to helping others. ‘To awaken this consciousness was the life’s task of the Buddha.’

OM, being the first syllable in the Great Mantra, is not the ultimate goal, but the most fundamental. It is the ‘primordial sound of timeless reality’, that which resonates and reverberates within us in the timeless past, present and future.

MANI

nature-mantra-anusha-mishra

Often known as the jewel of the mantra, MANI represents the elixir of life or the gift of immortality. The Philosopher’s stone and the task of separating the object of the alchemist’s experiments from the base elements of matter; of earth, air, fire and water present a true problem for the Buddhist monk. For where do these four elements end? Where on this universe can we find the end of matter, or something perceivable lacking in these fundamental materials?

The answer, the Buddha discovered, was in the purity and radiance of the true nature of the mind, in pure, universal consciousness. The kingdom of heaven or paradise itself can be found in such a syllable, and is often associated with the imagery of the diamond sceptre, or ‘Vajra’ in its three stages of unfolding.

It represents the highest form of attainment, the jewel in the crown and may even lead to extraordinary powers, such as a prolonged earthly life. It is the transcendence of perception then; the realization that these tangible, sensual things are in fact figments of the mind and were an illusion in the first place.

We need only master the highest form of alchemy and perform mind over matter, plunging ourselves into the seventh-class of consciousness and rise above the world of the senses into joy and bliss. It is the place where we become complete and the ‘I’ completely vanishes. It is the transformation ‘into the imperishable jewel of the adamantine mind.’

PADME

The lotus blossoming is also a well-known image associated with Buddhism, and it is here, in PADME that we meet it. Not only are we like lotus flowers growing from the mud towards the light, but this journey also represents the many past lives we must incarnate in order to experience the full spectrum of human experience.

Thus, through the many expressions of life come the various forms of approaching the light; from tantra to prana, shakti to shiva, the two dualities must exist in balance and full blossom in order to transcend. The female principle of Shakti, and raw power must join with the male principle of Shiva, and ‘resting in its own nature’ in a divine embrace before they can disappear.

symbol-buddhism-pink-lotus-flower

You might say we must pass through the many lessons of both genders before we can step outside of the seemingly endless cycle of Samsara.

The divine union can also be seen as the fullest expression of creativity… As we know, it is this and only this that leads to the miracle of the conception of life, and it can be viewed like a bridge between the two polarities; an integration of raw energies.

It is through this transcendence of dualities, much like the transcendence of the elements and matter in the previous syllable, that we find divine love and true self.

The act of blossoming requires compassion, the liberation of the heart to pierce through the illusion of perception and the cycle of dualities; man and woman, night and day, life and death. For only then will all disappear and reunite with the Whole.

HUM

If OM is ascent to universality and a statement to say ‘come and get me!’, then HUM is the journey back down. One cannot be without the other; if OM is like the sun, then HUM is like the soil, a deeper experience and a completion of the cycle.

‘In the OM we open ourselves, in the HUM we give ourselves. OM is the door to knowledge, HUM is the door to the realization of this knowledge in life. HUM is a sacrificial sound.’

It’s like the traveling of energies through the various chakras, though, in this instance, the energy travels to the heavens and back down again through the various channels in the body like lightning does when reconnecting with and being reabsorbed back into the earth.

The yoga of inner fire in the seed syllable HUM can be represented by the symbol of the flame and transfiguration. But according to Tibetan Mysticism it is not the root chakra where the final part of the mantra vibrates and eventually tails off, but the heart, the centre of giving and love, where the first expressions of the Bodhisattva resound.

Needless to say HUM is the finishing line, that which vibrates out our intention to the universe before calling it back in for another round.

Reference & Image Source

Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism by Lama Anagarika Govinda, B.I Publications, 1960
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Lotus
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Om Mani Padme Hum

Using Ego to Your Advantage

Nikki Sapp
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Using Ego to Your Advantage

 “The ultimate aim of ego is not to see something but to be something.” ~ Muhammed Iqbal

To a certain extent we need ego to exist in this physical dimension/plane. Without it, we would never get to experience the feeling of being a person, of meeting others, of being sad, angry, of falling in love, etc…

The illusion of ego is necessary in order to play this little game of life we have going on. However, technically, the ego doesn’t actually exist. It’s completely dependent on our belief in it in order to “be” something.

But before we jump on the “death to ego” bandwagon, we must recognize that without ANY ego, we don’t get to take part in any of this. And before we go trying to kill it and fight with it, we must also come to terms with the fact that you can’t kill something that isn’t even real.

The mere desire of wanting to get rid of something stems from the belief that the thing you are trying to get rid of actually exists. So on one hand we have the fact that a certain amount of ego is necessary in order to participate in life.

On the other hand we have the issue that the ego causes us suffering. It causes us to buy into beliefs about ourselves or about others that aren’t true and limit our experience of the world.

Also, it feeds of fear, complaints, worry and problems. So how do we find a balance between the two? How do we surrender to the necessary parts of our ego, the ones that we need in order to experience life while at the same not buying into the fear based belief systems and attachments that our ego has formed?

If the ego is something that our consciousness is required to experience in order to live life in this dimension, how do we go about making our ego our slave instead of our master?

“Spiritual transcendence is transforming the rigid ego attachments into acceptance of self and others.” ~ Lynne Namka

thoughts-egoIt is important to first remember that ego’s worst fear is being “found out” so to speak. The minute we shine the light of our awareness on it, it’s like turning on the light in a dark room that you thought a ghost was in, only to find that there was in fact nothing there at all.

This is exactly how the ego works. People spend years believing in all the stories it is creating about reality only to later find out it was all a lie. We could have literally decided to believe or not believe or create even any story we wanted to about our lives. But the ego does not want us to know that.

It masquerades as “us”, causing us to think that we are the ones generating the ideas and beliefs in our minds but in actuality we are the awareness that is behind the thoughts and ideas.

This is the most important thing we must realize when becoming master of the ego. Once we come to terms with the fact that it is not us, we can start identifying where our ego is causing suffering in our lives from a place of presence rather than identification. From this level of presence we can observe the ego without judging it and without fighting with it.

Which is exactly what the ego does not want. The minute we accept it, it can no longer “fight” with us. We simply recognize that it is trying to feed us a story and observe the story rather than believing or feeding in to it. In this pure observation rather than belief, we transcend the “fear” or “problem” the ego is begging us to believe in.

And it is at this point that we start running the show, we decide when we can use our ego to our advantage, meaning when our ego is giving us a belief that will cause us happiness and when the ego is giving us something that will cause us more suffering.

Quite literally, in complete acceptance of our ego the conflict ceases to exist. And as a direct result of this acceptance, we are better equipped to control our thoughts and ideas.

dealing with egoFor example, let’s say a person becomes angry, if the person completely accepts the “what is”, which is, in that moment they are angry, and they feel the anger rather than focusing on the story that the ego is building up as to the “why” they are angry, and who is to be blamed etc… the anger cannot bother them for long. It becomes just a feeling, and as all feelings, it eventually passes.

Making your ego your slave instead of your master is a process that won’t happen overnight. The ego has a tricky way of creeping back in ever so often pretending to be real and true.

The more we start operating out of the present moment we are then able to create space in between our thoughts. This space becomes the foundation in which we are able to take back control of our own psyche.

Do not fight with your ego. Do not try to get rid of it or kill it. Surrender to it, make friends with it, observe its nuances and when you begin to recognize a thought pattern that is starting to cause more suffering than you would like, simply, observe it without believing in it.

The ego is feeding off belief, and wherever the belief is placed is exactly the energy that will be amplified. Think of the ego as your imaginary friend, use it to your advantage when you need it, but the minute it starts to limit you or anchor you in fear, turn the tables on it by shining the light of your consciousness on it.

At this point you can get a good laugh at it and say to yourself, “Silly me, for a minute there, I actually believed you were real.”

http://youtu.be/NQnOQdmp6aE

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Ego
Master your mind
Master your ego

Heart Break: Using a Broken Heart to Confront our Fears

Nikki Sapp
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Heart Break: Using a Broken Heart to Confront our Fears

“Your task is not to seek for love but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~ Rumi

Love is the most powerful force in the universe, and in actuality, it is what we are, in our truest essence. As our ego begins to develop as a young adult we start identifying with it, instead of the love that we actually are.

In this identification with our ego, we buy into the illusion that we must seek outside of ourselves for this love. The further we drift from our own light and love that is already within us, the more we seek validation from another human being.

broken-heart

As long as someone else is telling us how wonderful we are or how much they like us, we can feel worthy as a person. However, when we make another person the pure reason for our happiness, we also are giving them the power to be our demise.

Their validation of our worthiness literally has the power to make or break us. Now as most of us know, very few relationships, especially those that we have when we are young, last forever. Almost everyone, has to some extent or another experienced the feeling of being heartbroken. And for some, this may happen repeatedly.

This perceived “loss of love” can be the worst feeling in the world. Since we are identified with the belief that we are not perfect, and we are not love, when someone is taking away the one thing that is truly making us feel whole as a human being, it can feel like the worst withdrawal stemming from a person who is addicted to a drug.

unconditional-lovePeople deal with this heartbreak in many number of ways, but because our first taste of a broken heart can feel so absolutely terrible, we almost always develop some level of fear around it. Some of the more common fears that most of us start to develop are, fear of being vulnerable, fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of being alone, and fear of being hurt.

Because we start associating love with fear, we build wall after wall around our heart center. We never want to feel the feeling of loss of love again so some may build so many barriers around their heart that when anyone tries to come in they will not let them.

Others may become comfortable in this “seeking” of love outside of themselves, and therefore may become addicted to relationships or love that don’t really seem to ever work out because the fact of the matter is, it is not stemming from an authentic place of love. It is stemming from fear based love, which isn’t really love at all.

The fear is, “I need you to make me feel whole, happy and worthy. I fear that if you are gone I will feel like less of a person, so I love you, but I only love you as long as you are validating my beliefs about myself, and reinforcing my sense of self.”

This is how a person forms love… with conditions. With all these fears, walls, and barriers that we form over time AGAINST true love, it is no wonder so many of us have such problems in our relationships. So how do we break the walls down? How do we move through all these fears in order to get back to our true & authentic nature, which is an infinite well of pure, unconditional love?

Is it possible that allowing ourselves to experience the pain of a broken heart can actually be the best thing we can do in order to move past the limiting belief systems of an ego that doesn’t yet know it is already perfect and whole?

“The wound is the place where the light enters you” ~ Rumi

Some people spend an entire lifetime preventing themselves from being hurt by another human being. They may consciously think they want to fall in love or are looking for a relationship, but in actuality the fear they have built around their hearts is the one thing that is preventing them from manifesting the thing they truly want.

Most likely they will attract other people who are afraid, or who love with conditions, which is never a good recipe for a healthy relationship. However, if we allow ourselves to jump fully into the pains of our heart center, and feel the perceived hurts to completion, we find that on the other side of our fears and “wounds” is complete peace.

A place of pure unconditional love that fear cannot exist in. By confronting the illusory self, and every blockage we have to being in our heart essence, we find that all the fears we were resonating with were the very thing that was blocking us from being open to not only our own self-love, but also to receiving love from another person.

When we are resonating in our own unconditional love for ourselves, we begin to be able to offer this to someone else. We stop having “expectations” of how people should act, we stop wanting to possess people and control them as if they are our possessions.

We realize that people who are looking for conditional/fear based love will either be completely turned off by us because we are not feeding into their ego or they will be forced to rise to the occasion and maybe our complete love will inspire them to drop down their walls and barriers.

If we encounter the first, we must be willing to let people go. It is not our job to decide whether it is their time or not to lose their fears, so if we see that they are not willing to drop their walls down, we must accept them as they are and let them go in peace.

But all this comes naturally to a heart that realizes it is already love. True love always wants the best for everyone involved, it wants the scenario that will serve the highest good of all parties, EVEN if that means not being together.

lightIn order to identify where we may be holding on to fears that have created barriers around our heart we must do a complete inventory of ourselves and past relationships. By doing this, we will be able to pinpoint where certain fear based beliefs were established about “love” (or what we THOUGHT love was).

By looking back and confronting these beliefs as simply not true we start moving through the “wounds” of our hearts. In doing so, we get to our own place of true, authentic love. We start to love ourselves unconditionally, because we see that any belief that we were holding on to that made us believe that we are not perfect and worthy was simply just not true.

We become completely open to love because we no longer have any fears blocking it. Our hearts become expansive, accepting and confident that all relationships we attract are essentially serving our evolution of consciousness, so whether they last 5 years or 5 days, we don’t hold on to them past their expiration date.

Experience, heart break. Dive into it fully and let yourself move through the pain… you may be surprised to see that you have been holding the power all along to mend your broken heart.

Image Sources:

Broken Heart
Light Through Trees

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